09/01/2026
Greg LaFollette is a number cruncher. He is also a good thinker. This piece was published in the Dakota Schout recently. Greg has given me permission to post it here.
Turnout Matters. So Does Who Turns Out.
Matt Paulson has made a thoughtful case for moving Sioux Falls municipal elections to the November general election. As usual, his argument is careful, clearly laid out, and well reasoned.
Matt has contributed to this community in a lot of ways — as a business leader, investor, philanthropist and engaged citizen — and that record matters here, whether or not you land where he does. He's raised a question worth taking seriously.
His strongest points: moving the election to June didn't produce the turnout bump many expected. Pairing municipal races with partisan primaries may be shaping who shows up, not just how many. Local candidates are getting lost in a crowded field. And a July transition left our newly elected mayor almost no runway before she had to present her first city budget.
I'd add one more question to the pile: is maximizing turnout the same thing as maximizing meaningful participation in local government?
When I first looked at the numbers, what struck me was how close they were. On June 2, 38,735 valid votes were cast for mayor. Three weeks later, the runoff drew 36,558. That's a small enough gap to raise a real question: were we looking at largely the same voters coming back to finish the job, or two similarly sized electorates made up of different people?
Rather than guess, I pulled voter-participation histories from the county auditors and matched the two elections using the unique voter ID numbers in those records. These histories show only whether someone voted — never who they voted for.
They're not the certified returns, but they're good enough to measure overlap.
The files show just under 40,000 unique participants on June 2 and just over 36,000 in the runoff. Of those, 29,403 voted in both — meaning only about 74 percent of June 2 voters came back three weeks later.
More than 10,500 people voted on June 2 and didn't return. Nearly 6,700 others skipped the first election but showed up for the runoff.
So, the modest drop in the topline turnout number was hiding a much bigger reshuffling underneath it. Over 17,000 people voted in one election but not the other. Almost one in five runoff voters hadn't participated three weeks earlier.
There was a large, stable core of voters running through both elections — but the two electorates were far from identical.
That doesn't settle when Sioux Falls should hold its elections. If anything, it backs up part of Matt's case: combining a nonpartisan municipal race with a partisan primary may shape not just how many people vote, but which people do.
At the same time, the runoff tells us something encouraging. More than 36,000 people turned out for a stand-alone municipal election — no presidential, gubernatorial, or legislative race pulling them to the polls. They showed up specifically to help pick the next mayor of Sioux Falls.
That doesn't make them better voters, and it doesn't make November voters less engaged or less invested in the city. But there's real value in an election where municipal candidates and issues get the voters' full attention.
November elections will always draw more people. If the only goal is raising the number of ballots cast, November wins that argument easily.
Before Sioux Falls changes its election calendar again, we ought to be clear about what we're actually trying to accomplish.
If the goal is sheer volume — the biggest possible number of ballots — folding municipal races into the November general election is the obvious move.
But if we also care about the quality of attention local issues get, a stand-alone municipal election has a real advantage. It lets mayoral and City Council candidates be heard over the noise of presidential, congressional, statewide and legislative campaigns. It gives voters room to focus on what City Hall actually controls: streets, public safety, utilities, housing, parks, zoning, and development.
This isn't a fight between good voters and bad ones. It's a choice between maximizing the sheer amount of participation and creating the conditions for people to pay closer attention to local candidates and issues.
Matt has done this community a service by starting the conversation. What the voter records suggest is that the discussion shouldn't stop at how many people vote. It should also be about building an election where the people who do turn out can actually hear the candidates, understand the choices in front of them, and focus on where Sioux Falls goes from here.
gll
