With intense interest in the presidential campaign, a U.S. Senate seat on the ballot and every post in the Georgia General Assembly up for grabs, November's general election may set a record for voter turnout.

That's exactly why the Cobb County and Marietta school districts are pressing ahead with their plans to hold an expensive special election in September on a major local tax issue. The districts want to extend a 1 percent sales tax they have been collecting for school construction and technology improvements, and they know that the relative handful of voters who turn out in a special election are more likely to approve it than voters in a general election.

The districts did have other options. Even if they are reluctant to wait until November, the school boards could order district administrators to hold the sales tax vote in the general primary in July, where turnout will at least be respectable. But most school board members show no interest in doing even that.

So it's time for the General Assembly to get involved. In the few days remaining in the 2008 session, legislators should intervene and stop the manipulation of election dates on local tax issues.

Senate Bill 71, requiring that special option tax elections be held only in conjunction with primaries and general elections, easily passed the upper chamber in the 2007 session, but it got hung up on the floor of the House in the final days. It has been buried in the House Government Affairs committee for nearly a year now. The House ought to revive the bill and pass it to the governor for his signature.

Cobb County and Marietta are far from alone. Around the state, most school districts, county commissions and other local government entities have grown accustomed to pushing through tax issues in low-turnout special elections.

Last year the Fulton, Atlanta and DeKalb school districts asked voters to extend a 1 percent sales tax projected to generate as much as $2 billion over five years. The vote was held in March. Turnout was about 3 percent of registered voters. In Fulton alone the cost of the special election was $1 million.

With anemic turnouts in special elections, school districts can count on employees, PTA members and other advocates to show up at the polls to overwhelm what little opposition there is to the measure.

The tax in Cobb County, if approved, is expected to generate about $700 million through 2013. It will be the fourth time Cobb voters have been asked to approve a sales tax. Most observers expect this vote to be close, if for no other reason than the controversy caused by the last one.

In a special election in 2003, Cobb voters overwhelmingly approved renewing the schools sales tax. But the district created a storm of controversy when it decided to spend $70 million of the money on laptop computers for middle and high school students. The laptop plan was eventually halted when a court ruled the school board did not provide enough information to voters about it when they went to the polls.

No doubt the new school board would like as little controversy as possible over this latest vote, but holding a special election only invites suspicion of its plans.

School officials claim their hands are tied on dates for the referendum because state regulations require at least 80 days from the time the issue passes until the tax can be levied. If the vote is held in November, they say, the law would mean Cobb couldn't start collecting the tax until March, a delay that would result in a $40 million "loss."

However, the Cobb tax is an extension of the existing levy, requiring no changes in how or where it is collected. If it takes clarifying language from the Department of Revenue or the Legislature to allow votes on renewals of sales taxes to be held in November, that should be easy to accomplish.

School districts throughout the state rely on special sales tax levies to finance construction and remodeling programs, and voters have generally supported those efforts.

If school boards, PTAs and school advocates have a good proposal for spending local tax dollars, they should build support for that proposal among as many voters as possible. Special elections allow them to avoid that.