Background
Municipal election systems are determined by the nature of the council members’ constituency and by the presence or absence of party labels on the ballot. With regard to the latter feature, there are two types of ballots for city council members. In partisan elections, the party affiliation of the candidate is indicated on the ballot, whereas in nonpartisan elections it is not. Over three-quarters of all municipalities have nonpartisan elections.
Proponents of nonpartisan ballots suggest that:
- Political parties are irrelevant to providing services; and
- Cooperation between elected officials belonging to different parties is more likely.
Proponents for partisan elections argue that:
- The absence of party labels confuses voters; a voter who must choose from among a group of candidates whom he or she knows nothing about will have no meaningful basis in casting a ballot;
- In the absence of a party ballot, voters will turn to whatever cue is available, which often turns out to be the ethnicity of a candidate’s name, incumbent status, or single-issue identification; and
- Non-partisanship tends to produce elected officials more representative of the upper socioeconomic strata than of the general populace and aggravates the class bias in voting turnout, because in true non-partisan systems there are no organizations of local party workers to bring working-class citizens to the polls on Election Day.
Listed below is the election format for a selection of large cities in the United States.
New York, NY, Partisan
Los Angeles, CA, Non-Partisan
Chicago, IL, Non-Partisan
Houston, TX, Partisan
Phoenix, AZ, Non-Partisan
Philadelphia, PA, Partisan
San Antonio, TX, Non-Partisan
Dallas, TX, Non-Partisan
San Diego, CA, Non-Partisan
San Jose, CA, Non-Partisan
Detroit, MI, Non-Partisan
San Francisco, CA, Non-Partisan
Jacksonville, FL, Non-Partisan
Indianapolis, IN, Partisan
Austin, TX, Non-Partisan
Columbus, OH, Non-Partisan
Fort Worth, TX, Non-Partisan
Charlotte, NC, Partisan
Memphis, TN, Non-Partisan
Baltimore, MD, Partisan
Boston, MA, Non-Partisan
El Paso, TX, Non-Partisan
Milwaukee, WI, Non-Partisan
Denver, CO, Non-Partisan
Seattle, WA, Non-Partisan
Nashville, TN, Non-Partisan
Washington, DC, Partisan
Las Vegas, NV, Non-Partisan
Portland, OR, Non-Partisan
Louisville, KY, Partisan
Sources
Ross, Bernard and Myron A. Levine. Urban Politics: Power in Metropolitan American, 6th edition. Florence, KY: Wadsworth Publishing, 2000.
MacManus, Susan A. and Charles S. Bullock, III. “The Form, Structure, and Composition of America’s Municipalities in the New Millennium.” In The Municipal Year Book 2003. Washington, DC: International City/County Management Association 2003.
Svara, James H. Two Decades of Continuity and Change in American City Councils. Washington, D.C.: National League of Cities, September, 2003.