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SUMMARY: It's back to full-day voting in MCPS elections; now if we could just move school elections to November.

Missoula County Public Schools trustees have decided to restore full-day voting in school elections, abandoning a two-year experiment with shortened voting hours. Good. That experiment only proved the obvious: reducing opportunity to vote reduces voting. In the two years MCPS staged half-day elections, voter turnout declined by more than 50 percent from already low levels.

In 2005 and 2006, MCPS elections started at noon and ended at 8 pm., making it harder for people to vote on their way to work or when dropping the kids off at school. You might not think it would make all that much difference, but with only a few thousand people turning out in a typical school election in this city, every vote counts. Last May, the school election turnout of about 8 percent set a dismal modern record.

Curtailed voting hours were touted as a way to save $5,000 a year in polling-place staffing costs. No amount of savings, however, could offset the loss of legitimacy that comes when 92 percent of registered voters don't participate in the election.

This year, on May 8, polling places in the district will open at the normal time, 7 a.m. Let us be the first to applaud the school board for this move. Thanks.

Now if we could only get school elections moved to November. Holding those elections in the spring makes no more sense than reducing the number of hours the polls are open. School elections throughout the state get half or less the turnout of other elections. If we wanted to ensure greater participation, we'd hold school elections on the first Tuesday in November, traditional Election Day.

This spring, as it is every other year when the Legislature is in session, the folly of spring school elections is especially apparent. Montana lawmakers aren't even close to finishing work on state school appropriations, which make up the lion's share of public school funding. So, school districts statewide are printing up ballots and preparing levy elections without a clue about how much local tax revenue they really need. The way things are going in Helena this year, we'll be lucky if we have a state budget to look at even on school Election Day.

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