{"id":48256,"date":"2025-11-13T17:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T17:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/48256\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T17:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T17:47:10","slug":"dallas-council-moves-city-voting-day-to-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/48256\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Council Moves City Voting Day to November"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tCouncil member Chad West and Rep. Rafael Anchia \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Alyssa Fields<\/p>\n

The Dallas City Council unanimously approved changing the election cycle for selecting the next City Council,<\/a> moving it from May to November starting in 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The effort, made possible by years of work from a group of Dallas lawmakers and advocates, passed 15-0, a surprise to those who had led the charge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not think it was going to happen,\u201d said council member Chad West. \u201cLiterally about an hour ago, I didn\u2019t think it was going to happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

West credits the diligent work of state Rep. Rafael Anchia and state Sen. Nathan Johnson, who were instrumental in passing a bill that allows political divisions, including municipalities, to elect to move the date of their general elections. The legislative effort followed the wide support of Proposition D in the November 2024 election, which removed the requirement for May elections from the city\u2019s charter<\/a>. The proposition passed with 65%, or 231,000, voters voting in favor,\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The change aims to increase voter participation<\/a> by saving voters a trip, allowing Dallas residents to check all boxes in one go.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have enhanced participation, you strengthen democracy. Period. Full stop,\u201d said Anchia at a press release immediately following the vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anchia and West referenced Dallas\u2019 abysmally low voter turnout<\/a>, which is among the worst of any major city in the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a crisis. That is a problem,\u201d Anchia said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Driving Force<\/p>\n

Behind the curtain, David de la Fuente, who once served as West\u2019s volunteer campaign manager, has been the hand moving the needle on changing the election dates for years. Passing de la Fuente\u2019s No. 1 priority took hundreds of emails, countless hours spent at City Hall and unimaginable amounts of research and advocacy to finally see success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been spamming your inboxes with these for the last four years on this issue. I appreciate you all putting up with me,\u201d he said to the council before the vote. \u201c\u2026 This is a task I took upon myself to not let die. To not take no for an answer. You 15 have the power to fix an old mistake in our election system. The people voted and asked you to change it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The father of two and political analyst holds limited sway in the political sphere. Other than being adamant and informed, de la Fuente is just a concerned citizen, making the achievement all the more impressive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m at a loss for words after four years of yapping nonstop about this,\u201d he said at the press conference. \u201cI think this is a lesson for anyone in the city of Dallas that if you identify a problem here in our great city and you take it upon yourself to make sure it\u2019s fixed for not only yourself, for your family and for all other city residents, you can make a difference in our community. If I had to do this alone, I would have failed. I would have failed spectacularly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the measure passed without much resistance, some council members questioned the complicated timing issues that would arise in the next election cycle. When the next council takes its seats in 2027, the city\u2019s budget<\/a>, which is workshopped in August, will already have been approved, meaning the new council will have limited context.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Councilmember Adam Bazaldua joked that the next generation of fresh faces to the council will be staring down a slew of newly approved propositions and charter changes before they even know where the bathrooms at City Hall are.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other concerns raised were the extension of the term for the current council. Moving the election to November immediately grants its members an extra six months of service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the hesitation was not enough to create significant roadblocks, especially when lawmakers brought up Dallas\u2019 favorite thing, saving taxpayers money.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m confident with today\u2019s vote, we\u2019re going to turn [voter participation] around,\u201d West said. \u201cWe know that November elections will also mean more early election days and more locations to come. Lastly, this move [will save] city taxpayers half a million dollars every two years, resulting in millions of dollars in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Council member Chad West and Rep. Rafael Anchia Alyssa Fields The Dallas City Council unanimously approved changing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3084,102,104,103,409,293],"class_list":["post-48256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-city-hall","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-election","tag-texas-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}