Lexington Town Council has given itself an extra year to serve.

Council members last week voted 6-0 to move council elections to off years. Mayor Pro Tem Hazel Livingston was absent.

Members say moving elections will help ease crowding and confusion that can result when ballots are long and turnout is heavy, reported the Lexington Sun.

As a result, council members will get an extra year tacked on to their staggered, 4-year terms.

Council members elected in 2016, whose terms expire in 2020, will instead exend their terms carried until November 2021.

Mayor Steve MacDougall and fellow council members elected in 2018, whose terms expire in 2022, will serve until 2023.

Beginning in 2021, all subsequent municipal elections will be every 2 years.

The county Registration and Elections Commission and state Municipal Association recommended municipalities move their elections to the odd years to avoid confusion during busy presidential elections.

Council member Steve Baker said that council moved to odd years in 2009 and returned to even-year elections in 2014.

Lexington is one of only 2 county municipalities still holding even-year elections.

Former Chapin Mayor Skip Wilson tried unsuccessfully to do this, but his council voted him down.

Council member Ron Williams asked if off-year elections would cost more.

“It might be a little less,” Town Administrator Britt Poole said. “But you’re probably looking at the same amount. It generally runs about $5,000 an election.”

County elections director Mary Brack told The Sun the change was “a great idea.”

“It always runs with our general ballot. So it (the municipal races) is the last thing on the ballot,” Brack said.

“The confusion comes from when people come to vote and they vote, say, a straight party and they never make it to this part of the ballot [which is non- partisan]. So, they’ll stop and say, ‘I didn’t get to vote for that.’

“For us, it’s like two separate elections, though it’s on one ballot,” she added.

Now it will be strictly a municipal election, Brack said.

Though there’s no way to tell yet how the change will affect voter turnout, Brack expects it will remain about the same, she told the Chronicle.

“It’s up to the candidates to get the word out.

“At least the people that go vote that day know what they’re voting for so there’s no confusion about that,” Brack said.