Big races, low turnout: Few votes cast so far in May 2 school board elections

Inside a classroom at the Christian Family Baptist Church on Monday morning, elections clerk Raul Cervantes was ready.

Five blank ballots lay on the table in front of him, waiting for people to trickle in for the May 2 municipal and school board elections — the first since major policy changes rocked the state’s public school funding model and radically changed the way parents can weigh in on what’s being taught.

But after four days of anemic turnout, even that number might have been optimistic.

According to the Bexar County Elections Department, roughly a quarter of the county’s voters have a school board race, municipal election or bond proposal to decide on their May 2 ballots.

Yet after the first full week of early voting, only about 1% of those eligible voters have cast an early, in-person ballot.

Top education races to watch on the May 2 ballot

As of Monday morning, Cervantes’ location in far west Bexar County had seen fewer than a dozen voters successfully cast their ballots — the lowest number of any of the county’s 19 early vote centers, which are all experiencing anemic turnout.

While the parking lot off Highway 90 West and Grosenbacher Road was a ghost town, inside the three retirees overseeing seven polling machines passed time reading and chatting about yesterday’s Spurs game and Missions baseball.

“We know everything about each other,” joked elections judge Jorge Garcia, who’d found a spot perched next to a stack of Bibles.

He estimated about 15 people who stopped in were not eligible to vote at all because there were no elections corresponding to their addresses — they live outside the district or the county.

Others came thinking they would be voting in the Republican and Democratic primary runoffs — a different election that will be held May 26 — and had to be turned away.

Meanwhile on the North Side, a pair of heated Northeast ISD school board races and an unusually contentious Alamo Colleges board race have drawn slightly higher traffic: Roughly 100 voters per day to some of the busier locations like the Universal City Library, Tobin Library and Lion’s Field Adult and Senior Center.

But across the board, election officials, campaign volunteers and political organizers say important decisions on the May 2 ballot are falling to just a tiny handful of voters who’ve studied up enough to know the election is even happening.

“We’re dealing with a lot of voter confusion from two elections in one month,” said Cameron Jones, a campaign field organizer hired by the Northeast Bexar County Democrats to influence local school board races. ” … Not everyone has a race on their ballot so we’re trying to communicate with the ones who do, and reassure the ones who don’t.”

Elections Administrator Michele Carew said people should take advantage of the low-turnout election to make their voices heard.

“Voting in local elections makes a greater impact,” Carew said.

Polls are open one more day for early voting on Tuesday, April 28, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

A much longer list of voting locations will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on election day, Saturday, May 2. Find an election day voting location on this map.

Do I have a race on my May 2 ballot?

Generally speaking, the races on the May 2 ballot include school board races in North East ISD, Alamo Heights ISD, Southwest ISD and Medina Valley ISD, plus one Alamo Colleges District Board race on the Northeast side and a bond election in Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD.

Additionally, 14 smaller municipalities are electing mayors, council members and weighing in on taxing issues.

To find out whether you have a race to vote in, find your home on the map above or verify your voter registration status with the Bexar County Elections Department.

Once you’ve pulled up your registration online, click the link to download a copy of your personalized sample ballot.

Voters who don’t have any races on the May 2 ballot will pull up a message saying, “There is currently no election information available.”

Why don’t I have a race on the May 2 ballot?

Some San Antonio-area school districts elect their school board members in November, or in May of odd-numbered years.

The City of San Antonio has long held its City Council and mayoral elections in May of odd-numbered years, but in an effort to improve voter turnout, moved its next election to November of 2029.

Even if your school district is voting this May, school boards typically only elect a portion of their members at a time. That means those using single-member districts — members who represent a specific geographic region — may not see their representative on this year’s ballot.

For example, Northeast ISD elected roughly half of its board in May of 2024. Now three seats are up in 2026, but districts 3 and 7 are the only ones with contested races.

Alamo Heights ISD and Southwest ISD elect their board members at-large, meaning every resident in the district can weigh in on all of its members.

Medina Valley ISD has a combination of single-member and at-large representatives, but only at-large members are on the ballot this year.

Use the San Antonio Report’s Education Voter Guide to read more about the candidates in each district’s races.

Change on the horizon?

Many school districts have wrestled with the idea of seeking higher voter participation, versus keeping their elections separate from other hot-button municipal issues and partisan races.

Since San Antonio moved its election to November, some districts that partnered with the city on May elections in odd-numbered years will have to consider whether to move theirs as well.

“We should be moving to where we get the best turnout. Where is the best turnout? Always in November,” said Pete Bernal, a school board candidate in Southwest ISD who lobbied hard to get the district to use Bexar County’s vote centers this year instead of an entirely separate ballot.

In Medina Valley ISD, voting is even more confusing.

Most of the district’s residents live in Medina County, and must use Medina County polling sites in Castroville, Devine and Hondo.

But a portion of the 300-square-mile district stretches into Bexar County, where voters were given the Christian Family Baptist Church as their nearest voting location.

Any Bexar County voter can use any Bexar County polling station, but this one sees little traffic from those outside Medina Valley ISD.

Located at 1589 Grosenbacher Rd., off of a somewhat rural two-lane roadway surrounded by undeveloped land, it’s been a popular presidential year voting location, and has plenty of ballots ready should things turn around.

“We have 4,990 more waiting,” Garcia said of his blank ballots on the table — and no lines.

Regardless of who shows up on May 2, he vowed, “we’ll be here 7 a.m. to 7 p.m..”