City and school elections will be held in November this year; this is a departure from past years when they were held in the Spring.

Rebecca Bossemeyer, County Clerk, said that the change was signed into law in 2015 because Legislators wanted to increase voter turnout.

“Part of their belief in doing that was if you had the regular cycle that everyone was used to with the larger elections that we have in the even numbered years, that it would make people more aware of it,” said Bossemeyer. “They want to see increased turnout in those types of elections.”

City and School District elections are in many ways conducted like the “regular elections” but there are some differences.

“The City/School elections are nonpartisan, so they don’t tell us what their [political] party is, we don’t print the party on the ballot; and that’s also why we don’t have a primary election with the City/School because that’s based on the number of candidates that file and not the fact that it’s a partisan election where you’re nominating your candidates,” said Bossemeyer.

In order for a primary election to be held there must be more than three times the number of candidates as there are vacancies. For example, there are three seats up for election on the City Commission, in order to have a primary there must be ten candidates.

As of today, there has been only one filing for candidacy to the City Commission. There are still no filings for the School Board, where there are four seats up for election.

The filing deadline is Thursday, June 1st at noon.

The Junction City High School bond issue will also be on the ballot at the time of the general election in November.