If Southwest Independent School District leaders were interested in engaging with the most voters possible, they would have joined the city of San Antonio and moved the district’s elections to November.

But leadership in this district of about 13,000 students has long tried to avoid voters, and that is apparent even when a positive change occurs.

Here is the positive change: The district will be on the Bexar County-wide ballot, with election day on May 2, Texas Public Radio reported. In that election, voters will cast ballots in several school board races and choose leaders in 14 area municipalities. No San Antonio races are on the ballot.

This is a welcome improvement over the district’s past practice of refusing to share the May ballot with the city of San Antonio, where many students live. Instead, the district held its elections with the small city of Lytle in Atascosa County.

That meant until now, voters who are San Antonio residents and live in Southwest ISD’s territory had to cast ballots in separate locations in order to participate in both entities’ elections. It was a blatant maneuver, albeit legal, to reduce voter turnout.

Now that San Antonio has moved its elections to November in the hopes of higher turnout, Southwest ISD has joined the Bexar County-wide ballot for May. Four candidates — Pete “Pedro” Bernal, James Gonzalez, Jose “Joe” Diaz and Yolanda Garza-Lopez — are vying for two seats on the school board in an at-large election.

The good news is the move will make voting easier and, hopefully, increase turnout. And yet if the district really wanted to improve turnout, it would have tethered itself to a November election with the city of San Antonio. May elections were already low-turnout affairs, and they will be even more so without the city of San Antonio on the ballot.

Southwest ISD officials have long argued they want to guard against unqualified voters, but what they are really saying is they want to choose their voters, and guard against transparency and public oversight.

 In that light, while this change marks one small step for the district, it is hardly a giant leap forward for voting rights.