And the chance for stronger democracy it creates.

In a 2012 state legislative hearing, the lead proponent of a bill to consolidate local elections in November of even-numbered years said:

This bill would do one thing and one thing only. It would make Election Day uniform throughout the state…[it] ought to be a non-controversial topic. …This bill saves money. It increases voter turnout. …If we believe in representative democracy…we should support this bill.

Was the speaker progressive or conservative? A Republican or a Democrat?

What about the champion of a similar bill in a different state who said this in 2015?

"There is one major contributing factor to low voter turnout - the timing of elections - that could be addressed with a relatively simple policy change."

And how about the legislative sponsor of a 2023 bill in yet another state who proposed to move "every single type of election in the state…to our regular even-year elections" because "doubling turnout - that's all for the good"?

BIZARRE-PARTISANSHIP

The first speaker was the Arizona arch-conservative Clint Bolick, co-founder of the libertarian Institute for Justice. The second quote is from the arch-liberal interest group California Common Cause. The third is from of Montana state representative Mike Hopkins (R).

Is election consolidation (moving local elections to the same November ballot as national elections) a rare political case, then? Is it a reform where the left and right work together?

Not at all. To date, it's been more bizarre-partisan than bipartisan. In these states and others, proponents and opponents recite the same arguments for and against election consolidation. Indeed, if you go online and watch hearings on these bills (as I have done for five states) or comb through media coverage from a half dozen other states considering the idea, you'll learn that the scripts are almost verbatim but the parties keep trading parts.

SWAPPING SCRIPTS

An example from the pro side:

"It's better to have 60 percent of the people rather than 30 or 40 percent of the people choosing,"

Kansas state senator Damon Thayer (R) said in 2020 as he argued against unified Democratic opposition for consolidated elections. Three years later, New York state senator James Skoufis (D) argued incredulously for election consolidation against a phalanx of Republican opponents.

"You have 20 or so percent of voters deciding the outcome for the entire jurisdiction,"

he said.

"Why are you so afraid of 50, 60, 70 percent of voters determining who should hold these local positions?"

And one from the con side:

"[Democrats] will stop at nothing to manipulate the system to rig themselves into total and permanent power,"

state Republican party chair Nick Langworthy of New York complained in 2022. A year later, Tennessee House Democratic caucus chair John Ray Clemmons called a Republican's election consolidation bill a way to

"manipulate the democratic process for the sole purpose of consolidating even more power."

Watch enough of these hearings and you'll experience a singular combination of déjà vu and whiplash.

ROLE REVERSALS

Leaders' actions matched their words. Almost every state election consolidation proposal in living memory has split legislators along party lines. In red states, Republicans vote yea and Democrats vote nay. In blue states, vice versa. It's an unusual pattern that's possibly unique.

Often, the proposals were almost identical, even borrowed. In 2012, for example, the Arizona legislature passed the bill Bolick was testifying for (HB2826 2012). Championed by the conservative Goldwater Institute and supported by GOP mainstays like the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry, the bill won with three-fourths of Republican senators and four-fifths of Republican representatives voting yes. Republican governor Jan Brewer signed the bill, which almost all Democrats opposed, into law.

Three years later, in 2015, neighboring California considered a similar bill (SB 415). One innovation...