Today marks the start of early voting for the May 4 election, and if history is any indicator, very few of the city’s registered voters will make it to the polls.
Last May, when all 14 city council seats and the mayor’s seat were on the ballot, roughly 6.6 percent of the city’s 650,607 voters visited the polls. Portland State University’s Who Votes for Mayor site gives further insight as to who is voting in May elections in Dallas: last year, the average voter was 62 years old. The median age in Dallas is 33.
This election may not have mayors and council members to vote for, but it is still no exception when it comes to important items on the ballot. Ten propositions for a $1.25 billion bond will attempt to address the most urgent of what city staffers say is $17 billion worth of unmet needs. We’ll provide a straightforward explainer on the bond tomorrow.
There are also three new Dallas Central Appraisal District board seats to vote for—Ekambar Kumar Singrikonda and P. Wylie Burge will vie for place 1, while Kendall Scudder and Alexandra Stewart are running unopposed for places two and three. In its second special session last summer, the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 2, which created three new at-large elected appraisal board seats in every county with a population of 75,000 or greater.