Seward council takes up moving city elections to November, starting in 2027

The Seward City Council will hold a public hearing at 7 pm Monday on an ordinance that would move the city's election from the first Tuesday in October to the state's November election day.

The city charter bars changing the election date less than a year before the first election it affects. City Clerk Kris Peck, the ordinance's sponsor, wrote that enacting it this month allows a November 2027 city election. Putting off the vote to Nov. 9 would let the city see how this fall's combined borough and state election goes first. Peck called that "the more cautious approach" but wrote that "the City would be locked into an October election for 2027."

Peck wrote that a November date would spare newly elected members from starting their terms in the middle of October budget work sessions. The drawback is "the amount of paperwork and ballots involved for the same election day." In a year like 2026, an absentee in-person voter would fill out three envelopes, for city, borough and state. Election Day voters would sign three registers and get three ballots. If the ordinance passes, Peck will bring a second one to adjust the rest of the election code, including candidate filing dates.

In 2025, Kenai Peninsula Borough voters approved a citizen initiative moving the borough election to November but leaving city election dates unchanged. That left Seward with a city-only election this year on Oct. 6, which drew 388 ballots from 1,774 registered voters, a turnout of 21.9%.

The council introduced the ordinance unanimously Oct. 12. City Manager Kat Sorensen reported that the election date was "a hot topic" at a recent city managers' conference in Homer and that other cities had moved to November. Fairbanks North Star Borough and North Pole voters decided proposals to move their own elections to November on Oct. 6, Alaska News reported.

A 2023 borough Assembly memo attached to the ordinance found that the Denali and Matanuska-Susitna boroughs, which vote on the state date, see higher turnout in state election years and lower turnout in local-only years. It also said combined elections mean separate election boards, lines, ballots and ballot boxes.