Following only a 19 percent voter turnout during last spring’s State Supreme Court election, a state representative proposed a state constitutional amendment Monday to move spring non-partisan elections to the November general election.

Rep. Gary Sherman, D-Port Wing, said he introduced the measure to help improve the quality of the state’s elections.

“Democracy is ill-served in the spring election,” Sherman said. “People could be passing through the primaries with a 10 percent voter turnout since primaries usually attract less people. That’s not democracy.”

Sherman added since elections require a lot of money and effort, they are often a burden to Wisconsin’s lesser-populated areas.

“Especially in small towns, it is not only costly but difficult getting people to do [the elections],” Sherman said. “To me and my town clerks, it seems like a no-brainer to reduce the elections to once a year.”

While low voter turn out may be a problem, Mike McCabe of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign said he thinks Sherman’s proposal is not the ideal solution.

“I have some misgivings about the idea of taking spring non-partisan elections and putting them on the spring ballot for the partisan elections,” McCabe said. “The reason we have two seasons is to separate non-partisan offices from partisan offices.”

McCabe added he believes many locally elected officials, such as City Council and school board members, fear the public will get caught up with the partisan ideals of fall elections.

Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, said he also worries the public will not pay attention to the ballot additions and instead concentrate on partisan elections.

“If you held spring elections in November, most voters would have no idea who they were voting for, and voter ignorance is already a major problem,” Grothman said. “If you look at the presidential election, many people vote for the president who don’t vote for state assembly. People just pay attention to McCain or Obama.”

Grothman also said voters will likely get confused because too many candidates from different races will be listed on a single ballot.

McCabe said he is unsure what the outcome of Sherman’s proposal will be.

“If it makes the elections more partisan, then it would be harmful, but if it makes voter turnout higher, then it’s a good thing,” McCabe said. “Hard to say if it would be helpful or harmful — we would just have to see.”

Having tried to pass similar bills twice before, Sherman said he has a good feeling about this proposal.

“It’s the beginning of a new term and [Democrats] are in the majority,” he said. “I think we need to take democracy back.”