What’s at Stake This Election? San Antonio City Council Props, Voter Purging, and PAC Money

Voters Prepare to Cast Ballots while Facing Misinformation, Voter Purges, and Important City Council Propositions

With Election Day just a matter of days away and early voting underway, voters must be prepared to make their choices of candidates for various offices, from local levels to state levels, congressional elections, and ultimately, for the Presidency.

How will you make your decisions on these issues, on the candidates, and give your support, one might ask?

Considerable amounts of money have been spent by various campaigns on advertising for their candidate, as well as on voter contacts and messaging in support of the issues important to voters.

Locally, with regards to changes to the City Charter, the Political Action Committee (PAC) RenewSA has reportedly “received big checks from big names within San Antonio’s business community.” The PAC reportedly received $125,000 in early donations in support of all six Propositions, especially Prop C, which would remove the caps on the City Manager’s salary and force him out in 2026. The Fire Department Union – IAFF has been circulating mailers asking voters “to not remove the caps, by voting no on Prop C,” with their budget suggested to be around $900,000.

Beyond those issues, voters must also be aware of the existence of systematic “voter purges” so close to an election, which is prohibited by federal law.

Recently, in Alabama, a federal judge ordered the Republican Secretary of State to “reverse a program that purged more than 3,000 names from the state’s voter rolls,” agreeing with the Biden Administration’s argument that the purge took place too close to the election.

Across the country, twenty states remove “otherwise eligible voters from registration rolls, based solely on how frequently they vote.” This tactic results in the unwarranted and erroneous removal of hundreds of thousands of voters each year. In fact, one-third of American voters (34%) live in a state that purged voter rolls in this way. Conducting voter purges based on inactivity is considered an improper form of voter roll maintenance.

All across the country, voters continue to be bombarded with “disinformation and misinformation,” which represents as great a threat to voter participation as their “cousins – procrastination and apathy,” neither of whom have a positive influence on voter turnout.

While the clock keeps ticking, we must note the efforts of community-based organizations that publish information on candidates’ positions, host civic forums and town hall meetings, and plan to address transportation to the polls for seniors or disabled voters.

We encourage you to make plans to vote: tell five family members, ten friends, and twenty naysayers how their voice needs to be heard—especially when they VOTE!