Getting out the vote for cities.

• Author: Letofsky, Cara
• Position: CityVote pre-presidential primary movement

St. Paul, Minnesota

On election day 1995, in cities across the country, urbanites will be voting for a variety of local offices. But unlike previous municipal elections, this time the ballot will include a list of U.S. Presidential hopefuls. Because of an initiative called CityVote, the first Presidential balloting will take place in the nation's urban centers, instead of in the cornfields of Iowa.

CityVote is an effort to reform the current Presidential primary calendar, which allows candidates to ignore urban areas. As it stands, the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, because they are the first electoral contests, command vastly disproportionate influence on the nominating process.

Larry Agran, the former mayor of Irvine, California, started CityVote in conjunction with the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 1992.

So far, eight cities have signed up - three of them in the state of Washington - Spokane, Olympia, and Tumwater, as well as Pasadena, Baltimore, Boston, Minneapolis, and St. Paul.

In the summer of 1995, participating cities will notify all active Presidential candidates that their names will appear on the November 7, 1995, ballot. In October, CityVote will sponsor four nationally televised candidate forums. The first will take place in St. Paul. On election day, voters will voice their nonbinding preference for the next President of the United States.

"CityVote's purpose is to focus unprecedented candidate and media attention on the problems...