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McALLEN — Three months after representatives from Ground Game Texas delivered a petition with signatures from more than 4,500 McAllen voters calling for the city to hold a charter amendment election, the cost of complying is causing some sticker shock.
It will cost the city of McAllen more than $244,000 to contract with the Hidalgo County Elections Department to administer the special election this November, which is a presidential election cycle.
“Because of what happened with those signatures from a group from Austin — not even from here — now we have to spend almost a quarter-of-a-million dollars to contract with the county to do this,” an audibly frustrated McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos said at the tail end of a McAllen City Commission meeting Monday.
Earlier this year, volunteers with Ground Game Texas, an Austin-based political advocacy nonprofit, began circulating a petition calling for the city to put two referendums on the ballot.
The first called for campaign finance reform that would limit campaign contributions to just $500 per donor per election cycle.
Currently, campaign contributions are capped at $5,000 per donor to a city commissioner campaign, and $10,000 for contributions made to a mayoral candidate.
The second referendum would give McAllen residents the power of initiative — what Ground Game refers to as “direct democracy powers.”
If approved, the McAllen City Charter would be amended to give residents an avenue to call for initiatives, to propose ordinances directly, to overturn ordinances passed by the city commission, and the power to recall elected officials.
Typically, McAllen administers its own elections; however, with Ground Game’s petition coming during an off year — one in which voters will be casting their ballots for president, as well — the city has to contract with the county in order to comply with the requirements of that larger election.
“In order for us to have an election on the same day they do, we would have to provide polling places at the same places that the county is providing polling places for that election,” McAllen City Manager Isaac Tawil said after Monday’s meeting.
But that also means that the city must bear the higher cost of holding an election during a presidential election cycle.
Normally, the city spends between $40,000 to $50,000 on administering its own municipal elections, the city manager said. And the city secretary, who is responsible for administering them, maintains an election budget of about $60,000.
But the referendums that Ground Game’s petition prompted will cost McAllen more than four times what the city is accustomed to spending.
The exorbitant cost came as a surprise to the commission and may force the city to scramble to find funding.
“The number we received (from the county elections department) in response to what was placed on us was shocking to us all,” Tawil said, adding that the city’s money crunchers may have to request a budget amendment to pay the election costs.
“That’s a heavy burden for the taxpayers of McAllen to have to pay for something we can debate whether they asked for,” Tawil said.
The city manager was referring to whether McAllen’s voters actually asked for the referendums to be placed on the ballot, despite the more than 4,500 registered voters who signed Ground Game’s petition between January and June.
“Initiatives always come down to the message. And I think a lot of people that signed the petition didn’t understand the message, didn’t understand what they were signing,” Tawil said.
Tawil’s comment was similar to a sentiment shared by the mayor after the commission emerged from a closed door discussion on the election.
“I think there was a lot of people that signed this petition without necessarily knowing what it is,” Villalobos said, adding that that made him “a little bit” disappointed with the people who signed it.
“But a quarter-of-a-million dollars for this? Which I think is very unnecessary, but, unfortunately … now we have to have an election so that people can once again keep on doing this year after year after year at their option,” Villalobos said, alluding to the “direct democracy” referendum.
That sticker price includes more than $74,000 for the ballot machines and accessories, nearly $46,000 for supplies, such as the specialized paper used for the ballots, and almost $78,000 to pay the salaries of the poll workers.
But it’s not just the election’s cost that has drawn ire from officials. The ballot language itself has drawn scrutiny.
“With respect to the initiatives and what those initiatives have been labeled, I think they’re very misleading in terms of what will appear on the ballot,” Tawil said.
While Ground Game dubbed the second proposition the “McAllen Direct Democracy Act,” it named the first proposition — the one that would limit campaign contributions — the “McAllen Anti-Corruption Act.”
That characterization has drawn pushback from commissioners, who say such anti-corruption measures would be better focused in surrounding towns where headlines of public corruption abound.
Election Day is Nov. 5. Early voting begins Oct. 21.
