School boards in session: methods of election in 2015
 Election Analysis |
Methods of election Opposition Non-incumbent success rates |
Success rates |
Analysis of incumbency advantage in the 2014 school board elections |
School board elections, 2015 |
A variety of election methods were used in the 2015 school board elections. Some states mandated that all school board elections be nonpartisan; others allowed candidates to run with a political party designation. Elections could also be held at large, by district, by a combination of those two or by multi-member districts. At-large and by-district elections were the most common district election methods in 2015. Some districts, however, used a combination of those methods in which some of the seats were elected at large and some were elected by district. In multi-member district elections, races were separated by district, but multiple members were elected from each geographic region.
In 2015, 92.73 percent of the top 1,000 largest school districts with board seats on the ballot held nonpartisan elections, while 7.27 percent held partisan elections. Nearly the same number of school districts held at-large elections as they did by-district elections. A total of 45.91 percent held by-district elections, and 45.00 percent held at-large elections. A total of 9.09 percent of the districts that held elections in 2015 used either a combination of the at-large and by-district elections or had multi-member district elections.
Methodology
In 2015, Ballotpedia covered school board elections in the top 1,000 school districts in the United States by enrollment. Of those districts, 440 held school board elections. These elections took place in 32 states. The 18 states where the largest districts by enrollment did not hold elections in 2015 were Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming. These states are not included in this report.
For more information on Ballotpedia's methodology for this report, check out the methodology in Ballotpedia's 2015 school board election analysis.
At large vs. by district
Though the by-district election method was used by more districts in 2015, more seats were up for election in districts that used the at-large election method. Districts that used by-district elections, however, had a much higher total student enrollment than districts that used at-large elections, indicating that larger school districts were more likely to use the by-district method. At-large elections saw a higher number of candidates run per seat, and by-district races saw a higher percentage of unopposed seats.
Incumbents left fewer seats open to non-incumbents in by-district elections than they did in at-large elections. Districts that used a combination method or a multi-member district method saw a higher percentage of incumbents run to retain their seats than districts that used by-district or at-large elections saw. More details on school board election statistics by election methods can be found in the table below.
| School board election statistics by election method | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | Number of districts | Total enrollment | Seats on the ballot | Total candidates | Candidates per seat | Open seats | Unopposed seats | Incumbents running for re-election |
| By district | 202 | 5,759,299 | 579 | 947 | 1.63 | 172 | 299 | 407 |
| At large | 198 | 3,488,317 | 619 | 1114 | 1.80 | 191 | 125 | 428 |
| Other | 40 | 1,074,420 | 179 | 314 | 1.75 | 45 | 71 | 134 |
Nonpartisan vs. partisan
There were far more nonpartisan elections held in 2015 than there were partisan elections. A total of 408 school districts held nonpartisan elections compared to the 32 districts that allowed candidates to use a political party designation. Despite the fact that a much larger number of nonpartisan elections were held, partisan elections had a higher average number of candidates run per seat than nonpartisan elections. Partisan races also had a lower percentage of unopposed seats. A total of 27.08 percent of partisan seats were unopposed, compared to 36.98 percent of nonpartisan seats. This indicated that there was a higher candidate participation rate in partisan races than in nonpartisan races in 2015. More details on school board election statistics by the partisan nature of races can be found in the table below.
| School board election statistics by partisan nature of election | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | Number of districts | Total enrollment | Seats on the ballot | Total candidates | Candidates per seat | Open seats | Unopposed seats | Incumbents running for re-election |
| Nonpartisan | 408 | 9,833,528 | 1,233 | 2,115 | 1.72 | 353 | 456 | 880 |
| Partisan | 32 | 488,508 | 144 | 260 | 1.81 | 55 | 39 | 89 |
See also
| School Boards | News and Analysis |
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