City Elections: All You Need to Know to Participate

Do you care at all about who runs the City of Austin? If not, you can go back to sleep. Otherwise, get pumped. Today is your chance to participate in the democratic process. Fourteen people are running for three city council positions and the mayor’s post.

Here’s a list of polling stations across the city [PDF]. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. During early voting, fewer than five percent of registered voters cast ballots. That’s down about 25 percent from the last mayoral election in Austin.

To make your decision easier for you, we interviewed every candidate and posted links to those interviews right here. You can also find links to newspaper and other endorsements below that.

Mayor’s race

• Clay Defoe
• Lee Leffingwell (incumbent)
• Brigid Shea

Place 2

• Mike Martinez (incumbent)
• Laura Pressley

Place 5

• Tina Canon
• Dominic “Dom” Chavez
• David Conley
• John Duffy
• R.A. “Bo” Prudente
• John Rubine
• Bill Spelman (incumbent)

Place 6

• Sheryl Cole (incumbent)
• Shawn Ireland

Newspaper endorsements

• Austin American-Statesman
• Austin Chronicle
• Daily Texan
• NOKOA
• The Villager

Other endorsements

• Austin Board of Realtors
• Austin Neighborhoods Council [PDF]
• Better Austin Today PAC
• Burnt Orange Report
• League of Bicycling Voters
• Network of Asian American Organizations
• Stonewall Democrats
• Texans for Accountable Government

Burnt Orange Report also has this more comprehensive list of local endorsements. PolitiFact has these fact checks of various statements by the candidates.  

Now go vote.