Supporters of the Fair Elections Initiative (FEI), a San Jose ballot measure that restricts certain lobbyists’ campaign contributions and proposes to move mayoral elections to presidential years, recently received a major legal victory.

A Superior Court judge has called for a full recount of the nearly 100,000 signatures collected to qualify the initiative for the 2020 ballot after the Santa Clara County Registrar’s office erroneously disqualified valid signatures. The recount is expected to cost the city $1 million, an expensive price tag in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The question now is what’s the best way forward? Labor leaders who bankrolled the initiative are asking the City Council to place the FEI on the ballot. Given Mayor Sam Liccardo’s business-friendly coalition on the council, this is unlikely.

But we believe there is a way forward that preserves major parts of the FEI, avoids a costly recount, and (perhaps) lowers political tensions. The City Council would agree to place a charter amendment on the ballot that proposes to move San Jose’s mayoral elections to presidential years beginning in the 2024, just as the FEI calls for. In exchange, supporters of the FEI would agree to drop the measure’s campaign finance restrictions.

This compromise would offer something to all sides. The city would avoid a costly recount. For FEI supporters, a deal raises the prospect that the mayoral election provision becomes law and, crucially, is implemented in a timely manner. As it stands now, developer-backed interest groups will undoubtedly file lawsuits challenging the legality of the measure’s campaign finance restrictions. Even if FEI supporters prevailed in court, delays caused by legal wrangling would be harmful. For more conservative members of the council, seeing the FEI’s campaign finance restrictions disappear would end (temporarily at least) a fight over a policy they feel unfairly targets business interests.

Last year, on a 6-5 vote, the council defeated a similar proposal to move the city’s mayoral elections. To make the deal we describe, one council member would need to change their vote. There are good reasons to do so. Moving the city’s mayoral election from its current gubernatorial cycle to presidential years, which historically generate much higher turnout, is good policy. It would strengthen our democracy. It would help ensure San Jose’s mayor — the official with significant influence over city policy and the only official elected at-large — is placed into power by a larger more racially and ethnically inclusive electorate that is representative of the city. We’ve estimated that moving San Jose’s mayoral elections to presidential years would increase average participation rates by more than 30%, or about 150,000 additional voters.

During last year’s council debate, opponents claimed that moving mayoral elections to presidential years would cause “voter fatigue,” or cause local issues to get lost in the “noise” of presidential contests. Those claims are false and have no supporting evidence in the academic literature.

A more recent concern is that removing the mayor’s race from the gubernatorial cycle will depress turnout in odd-numbered City Council districts, which hold elections at the same time. This presumes, however, that most voters cast ballots for city council because of the mere presence of a mayor’s race. Importantly, political science research on California municipal elections indicates mayoral contests have no statistically significant effect on turnout in city council races.

Political reformers of a century ago designed California’s municipal election systems to draw a narrow range of participants, voters of middle and upper classes who were seen as protectors of “good government.” Those voters were also disproportionately white.

Today, defenders of the status quo are defending a system where just 40% of registered voters regularly participate. By placing the FEI’s mayoral election provision on the ballot, the City Council would save scarce tax dollars, and most importantly, the council could help strengthen our democracy in ways that match our 21st century ideals.

Garrick Percival is associate professor and chair of the Political Science Department at San José State University. Mary Currin-Percival is an assistant professor of political science at San José State University.