Following suit with other towns in the Triangle, Apex is considering moving from odd-year mayoral and city council elections to even-year ones—an attractive prospect, given the potential for nearly six-figure savings and increased voter turnout.
If Apex makes the change, it would align the town’s elections with county, state and federal elections, allowing for cost-sharing with the county, having the races all on one ballot, and reducing voters’ trips to the polls. Apex is Wake County’s third largest municipality, with a population of about 85,000.
The Apex Town Council passed a resolution at its May 28 meeting to explore the “feasibility” of switching to even-year elections and encourage other Wake County municipalities to do the same. Currently, the only Wake County municipality in the even-year boat is Raleigh. Though Apex council members seemed optimistic about the change, they made no formal decision, and no vote was scheduled.
When Raleigh made the even-year switch in 2024, it saw a 61% decrease in election spending, according to a presentation Wake County Board of Elections (BOE) Director Olivia McCall gave at the Apex council meeting. In 2019, the Wake County BOE charged Raleigh about $834,000 to run its municipal elections, and in 2024, after the city made the switch, expenses decreased to about $325,000.
Raleigh’s voter turnout also jumped about 10%, Wake County BOE Secretary Gerry Cohen told the council. But in what could be seen as a trade-off, local races appear lower on a longer ballot, after federal, state, and county races.
A smaller township than Raleigh, Apex paid more than $150,000 for municipal elections in 2025 and more than $200,000 in 2023. If Apex saw the same 61% spending decrease as Raleigh did, switching to even years could look like saving nearly $100,000 compared to election spending in the 2025–26 fiscal year.
“In a budget cycle where we’re scrounging for every dollar, that starts to sound pretty appealing,” Mayor Pro Tempore Terry Mahaffey said at the meeting.
By switching to even years, Apex would end up spending less because it would share election expenses—poll workers, equipment, sites, advertising, early voting, and ballots—with Wake County. Plus, the more municipalities in Wake that hold even-year elections, the less expensive even-year elections would be due to the cost-sharing—hence Apex’s resolution urging other Wake towns to consider switching.
Conversely, if more Wake municipalities switch to even years, Mahaffey added, it becomes more expensive for towns to continue to hold odd-year elections, adding pressure to act relatively soon. But McCall told Apex’s council she had not been invited to present to other Wake municipalities about switching election cycles, and the Apex council members did not seem inclined to rush to make the change for Apex’s impending 2027 election.
As recently as 2010, only four municipalities in North Carolina held local elections during even years, Cohen said. As of 2026, that number has grown to 75. He added that there are 12 other municipalities across the state intending to switch, with bills pending in the legislature.
The Durham City Council also recently heard a proposal to make the switch, but most City Council members seemed vehemently opposed to the move. During a May meeting, a council member voiced fears that local races would be overshadowed by larger elections. Multiple members also emphasized that odd-year local elections allot time for voter registration and civic education and for council members to campaign on behalf of higher office-seekers.
Logistics: How Would Apex Make the Transition?
Based on the potential for savings and a voter turnout spike alone, the move sounds like a no-brainer for Apex, but switching to even-year municipal elections would inevitably cause an awkward transition from one cycle to the next. Cohen told the council it would have to decide either to extend existing mayoral and council member terms by one year, just once, or hold a one-time election for shorter three-year terms and pay for elections in back-to-back years. Most municipalities opt for the former, Cohen said, and all 12 with pending bills are seeking to follow that method.
This offshoot decision does present a potential conflict of interest: Council members could, with legislative approval, vote to extend their own terms by a year. Extending terms instead of holding an election that only produces three-year-term officials is—like making the switch to even years in the first place—in the spirit of cost-effectiveness. But it also nixes constituents’ ability to vote out ineffective officials for an additional year.
That same extended-term decision led to controversy in Raleigh, when the mayor and council members chose (with legislative approval) to delay the 2021 election to 2022 and continue with even years from then on, citing COVID-19 pandemic-driven census delays. In response to council members’ concerns about constituents’ pushback, Cohen noted the uproar in Raleigh was temporary.
What’s Next?
Per the council’s resolution, Apex is issuing a survey to other Wake County municipalities to gather their mayors’ and council members’ feedback on exploring switching to even-year elections.
Town staff must now examine the “legal, operational, fiscal, and procedural implications of such a transition” and present a recommendation report to the council by June 30. If Apex wants to change to even-year elections, it would need state legislative approval.
“The motivating factor here: We’re in the budget season and that’s the reason we’re discussing this,” Mahaffey said. “It does come down to money, and based on the data I’m seeing, it sounds like it’s for everyone’s benefit.”
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