How to prevent another Flint: Move gubernatorial elections to presidential years

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/3/1479244/-How-to-prevent-another-Flint-Move-gubernatorial-elections-to-presidential-years
"State Republicans, led by Gov. Rick Snyder, have long used their power to usurp local government authority by appointing unelected emergency managers in solidly Democratic cities, including Flint. Their aggressive gerrymandering has insulated their legislative majorities from public disapproval, even though the GOP habitually loses the statewide popular vote. Together, these measures have subverted the democratic process in Michigan. However, there is a way to break the Republican stranglehold on state government and align Michigan’s policies more closely with its citizens’ wishes: Move gubernatorial and state elections from midterms to presidential years. Republicans benefit heavily when elections don’t coincide with the presidential cycle because voters who skip midterms tend to disproportionately lean Democratic. Sixty-five percent of eligible Michigan voters turned out in 2012, but without a presidential race on the ballot, turnout plummeted to just 43 percent in 2014. Snyder won a second term that year by just a 4 percent margin; with presidential turnout, he could very well have lost. It seems even likelier that he never would have won in the first place had Michigan elected its governor in 2008 and 2012, when Democrats easily won the state for president—as they have every year from 1992 on."