St. Paul residents were faced at the polls on Tuesday with two city-specific ballot questions: Should City Hall raise property taxes annually — each year for 10 years — to help pay childcare costs for families in need? And should municipal elections for mayor and city council be moved to an even-year cycle to capture higher voter turn-out during presidential years? As of late Tuesday, no results had been reported by Ramsey County elections officials. Both questions raised a range of reaction at City Hall throughout the campaign season, with property tax-backed childcare subsidies in particular garnering opposition from St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter — who has said he would not institute the childcare initiative if it were approved — and Council President Mitra Jalali, while drawing support from some of their equally progressive peers. The prospect of raising housing costs through higher property taxes gave some voters pause, even as a coalition of early learning advocates urged residents to remember that investments in children’s education early on, before they set foot in school, can pay dividends down the line through higher graduation rates. Critics had noted, however, that the wording of the ballot question did not require childcare providers to teach a curriculum or gain the approval of a rating system such as Parent Aware. City Council Vice President HwaJeong Kim, Rebecca Noecker and Nelsie Yang backed a “Yes” vote for childcare subsidies. Rather than door knock for or against the childcare subsidy initiative, ISAIAH — an interfaith advocacy organization that had supported the city’s rent control and paid sick leave policies — deadlocked internally and chose to stay on the sidelines. Advocates for immigrant rights also appeared split. Jalali joined state Rep. María Isa Pérez-Vega, state Rep. Liz Lee, St. Paul Federation of Educators president Leah VanDassor and voting rights advocate Wintana Melekin on Friday in a rally urging voters to vote “No” on both questions. Can ranked-choice ballots be merged with presidential ones? With turnout for mayoral and city council elections in freefall, advocates for even-year voting had tried for at least eight years to get a ballot question past the city council and before voters. On the council, Noecker was the only open proponent of even-year elections. Critics of off-year elections argue that low turnout empowers Democratic-Farmer-Labor party insiders and a slim band of interest groups, such as labor unions, by giving them outsize voice. On the flip side, voter fatigue could also make it harder for municipal candidates to have their voices heard, recruit donations and woo volunteers after campaigns for U.S. president, senator and state representative have already come door-knocking. Others worry that even-year elections would undermine the point of ranked choice voting, which St. Paul instituted in 2011, and drown out third parties and non-traditional candidates, who would be lost in the partisan wave of a presidential election. Still, in the modern era, non-DFL-aligned candidates have faired poorly in local elections in St. Paul, regardless of the year. Jalali and others questioned whether combining a ranked-choice municipal ballot with a presidential ballot was even feasible under state law, which spells out ballot formatting for presidential and statewide elections. That question remains unresolved. “There is no state law on ranked choice voting,” said Cassondra Knudson, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office, in an email Monday. “There are very specific state laws on how ballots should be formatted and tabulated that do not consider ranked choice voting as an option. … There isn’t much more to say as the logistics will need be determined by the city.” On Friday, a spokesperson for Ramsey County Elections noted that ranked-choice voting in an even year is possible “administratively,” in that the county has the technical wherewithal. Jalali herself was first elected in a special ranked choice, even-year election — featuring three candidates — held on the same date as the August 2018 statewide political primary, which also featured two races for U.S. Senator and the primary contest for Minnesota governor and attorney general. “No state law expressly prohibits a charter city from holding a municipal election in an even year with ranked choice voting,” said Peter Butler, who led efforts to get the even-year question on the ballot. 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