As our temporal odometer is about to roll over again, it’s time to check in on well … time itself.

As we glance a bit more closely on both our calendars — and for that matter our watches as well — there are a number of events that remind us of the interest that accompanies what happens when.

Chief among them recently is the move afoot in Lewiston to change the date of its municipal elections. If a petition drive launched last month garners some 2,700 signatures by mid-March, all Lewiston voters will have a chance to weigh in on whether its local elections would move from November to June. If the shift occurs it will be the fourth date change for local elections in the last eight decades for Maine’s second largest city.

Bringing into focus as it does the time of our elections and already giving rise to state-wide attention, the petition drive is an occasion to see how both Lewiston and other major Maine cities have settled upon their dates of municipal reckoning.

Before the dawn of its incorporation as a city in the 1860s – before which it was still a town – Lewiston, like virtually all other Maine municipalities conducted its elections in March. This was the month that since well before Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1820 had been town meeting time. March was likely chosen because the 25th of the month had been the civil New Year’s Day in England and its colonies for several centuries up until the 1750’s. Even after the New Year in England and America went back to the first of January in 1752, Massachusetts, which then included Maine, continued to conduct its elections in March.

Breaking the March municipal election day habit didn’t come easy for either Lewiston, Auburn, or for that matter any other community in Maine when it made the transformation from town to city status. By 1901, Portland became one of the first cities to abandon the March election date. This was when it obtained approval for the first Monday in December as its annual election. Both Augusta and Auburn followed suit in re-setting to a December date in the early 1920s.

Though in 1940 Lewiston joined these and most other Maine cities in surrendering its March elections, its choice of an alternative was different. Instead of sometime in December, the new date was the third Monday in February. (Run-off elections would be at the old March date, however.)

This had some fateful consequences. The most notable one was weather. In 1952, a blizzard proved so intrepid that the election was postponed. It took then City Attorney Frank Coffin and a lawsuit that went all the way to the state Supreme Court to uphold the validity of re-setting the election under such circumstances. The episode and similar weather conditions eventually led to a city charter amendment taking effect in 1963 that moved Lewiston elections to the last Monday in November.

An unforeseeable, but challenging consequence of the new date was that on the first time voting took place at that time, in 1963, it occurred the same day as President John F. Kennedy’s funeral, just three days after his assassination.

By 1973, Lewiston went to its present system of electing city officials on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in odd years, a system that had also been adopted by some other Maine cities including Westbrook. This had the effect of placing the election at the same time as statewide voting on referenda and bond issues even though because the date was in an odd rather than even year the election did not occur at the same time as voting for those running state-wide.

In doing so, the city was likely effecting a compromise between those who argued for a greater coordination between city and statewide voting on the one hand but while avoiding the phenomenon of having local races drowned out by those for the higher profile state and national positions. Though conducting city elections at the same time as state and national contests would draw a higher turn-out, such an experience might require a greater struggle by local candidates to compete for voters whose scope of attention might be confined to the more visible races.

Meanwhile, across the river, Auburn by the early 1940s moved its city elections to a September date that then occurred the same time as Maine’s state-wide elections for governor and seats in the legislature. Auburn stayed with its September date even after our state elections moved to November in 1960. By the late 1970s, however, it adopted the Lewiston/Westbrook approach of conducting them at the same time as the state’s November “off” or odd-year election cycle.

Though Portland was one of the first Maine cities to shake off its March election date it was one of the last to join those shifting to November. Along the way, it experimented with a date not that far off from one proposed in the recent Lewiston petition drive. The date called upon by Portland from the late 1970s through 2000 was May, just a month away from the June date now proposed by the recent Lewiston movement.

It wasn’t until the 2001 elections that Portland went to a November municipal election. Though its mayor, like that in Auburn, Lewiston, Westbrook and some other Maine cities is chosen at a time that coincides with the November off year voting, many of its city council and school board members are chosen in the same even year as statewide and national officials stand for election. That’s due to the staggered three-year terms for which running. Its mayor’s office, however, because it is given a four year term, winds up being posted in an off year November slot like the one which occurred last month in which Ethan Strimling defeated incumbent Michael Brennan.

It’s difficult to assess whether Lewiston will change its own election date next year. While the latest proposal is still in its petition circulating stage — and stirring up passions on both sides of the issue along the way — it’s a fitting time to look back at its past practices as well as those of its Maine municipal companions.

Paul Mills is a Farmington attorney well known for his analyses and historical understanding of public affairs in Maine; he can be reached at pmills@myfairpoint.net

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