ANN ARBOR, MI – Two citizen-initiated proposals aimed at significantly reforming the way Ann Arbor elects its mayor and city council went before voters on Tuesday, Nov. 5.

With polls closing at 8 p.m., votes are now being counted and early results show both ballot measures being defeated.

Since all 47 districts of the city have been partially counted, Demand C, to make the city elections nonpartisan, has 8,730 yes votes to 20,733 no votes, 70% against.

Prop D, which calls for the introduction of public financing of mayoral and council campaigns, has 9,330 yes votes and 19,796 no votes, i.e. 68% against so far.

Live general election results on Tuesday, November 5 in Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County

While there was quite a bit of debate about the proposals among close observers of city politics, most voters who spoke to MLive/The Ann Arbor News after the vote said they either didn’t have strong opinions about the proposals or didn’t feel like they knew enough about them to support them.

Some said they were influenced by Mayor Christopher Taylor and his allies on the City Council, who pushed for a no vote on both issues.

“I listened primarily to the City Council and the mayor on these two issues,” Bryan Ukena said after voting early at City Hall on Sunday, Nov. 3. He may have been more open to introducing city tax funding for mayor and city council campaigns if the proposal had been structured differently, he said.

“I also think there wasn’t a lot of information out there,” he said. “It would have been helpful to have more debate about it. I didn’t have a full understanding of what impact this would have, where it had already been done in other areas, and what the pros and cons would be.”

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Austin Baker, who also voted early at City Hall, said he saw no problem with abandoning party designations for mayor and council candidates and therefore supported Prop C.

“Especially when we know who we’re voting for, I don’t think it’s important to have the party label attached to it,” he said.

As for Prop D, he wasn’t sure, so he voted no, he said, describing the proposal as questionable.

Other voters said the city would rather spend the money on other purposes than funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars from the city budget each year into a campaign finance fund to boost small campaign contributions to candidates.

Some voters also said they had concerns about helping landlords fund the pro-Prop C and D campaigns, as differing opinions about the city’s new dense housing development were at the heart of debate over the proposals.

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Prop C proposed eliminating party designations for mayor and council candidates and eliminating the city’s August primary elections so that candidates of all political stripes would compete for city offices in November, when voter turnout is higher.

Prop D, which the Michigan attorney general’s office said conflicts with state law, called for the creation of a taxpayer-funded campaign finance program that funnels hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from the city budget into a fair elections fund to help small Campaign contributions of up to $50 to mayoral and council candidates at a 9-to-1 ratio.

That means for every $50 someone gives to a candidate for city office, they receive an additional $450 from the city — a maximum of $40,000 for council candidates and up to $90,000 for mayoral candidates. However, they would have to agree to lower campaign contribution limits and reject donations from corporations, PACs and other organizations.

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A group called the Coalition for Ann Arbor’s Future collected over 11,000 signatures to put the proposals on the ballot. The group is made up of residents and former council members who are concerned about the conduct of city elections in recent years and the level of campaign spending in city elections.

They called the proposals an attempt at progressive reform to combat the influence of big money in city politics and help more people run for office, but Taylor and his allies branded it an attempt to be more conservative, anti-housing candidate elected to the council and said it would disenfranchise Democratic voters by eliminating Democratic primaries. They also had concerns about the possibility of fraud and misuse of public funds, while Taylor explicitly argued in campaign literature that this could help fund candidates running on extreme or hateful platforms.

The debate over the proposals reflects the deep factional divisions that existed on the council for years before Taylor and his allies won control of all 11 seats in recent elections.

Elizabeth Nelson, one of the former council members who collected signatures to put the proposals on the ballot, wrote in her final blog post on Election Day that she was worried and worried about the consequences of Tuesday’s vote and what it means for democracy Federal and local levels.

“This year, the country has a choice between supporting leaders who believe in inclusive democracy or supporting others who target self-interest and profit motives,” she wrote. “I hope enough voters are able to recognize and reject ugly rhetoric and fear-mongering to make decisions that uplift our democracy. Locally, I hope the same.”

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