Ballot Math / School districts / Tempe Elementary
School board race: Tempe Elementary School District

Tempe Elementary: the board president, a silent incumbent, and a social worker challenger

November 3, 2026 general election. Tempe Elementary School District No. 3 serves Tempe and parts of Phoenix and Guadalupe. Both incumbents are running. Tempe Elementary has no bond or override question on this ballot; its bond passed in 2025.
How this race works: two of the board's five seats are up, both for four-year terms. Three candidates are on the ballot; vote for up to two and the top two win. Board service is unpaid.

Charlotte Winsor (incumbent)

The board's president and an eight-year board member. She is a longtime educator and former district administrator, a former Tempe Elementary student herself, and her three children also attended the district. She has more than 27 years in public education.
  • Stated priorities: improving academic outcomes, strengthening student safety, addressing aging facilities and infrastructure, and keeping the district financially and operationally stable through uncertain funding and changing enrollment, with long-term planning.

Eric Miller (incumbent)

Incumbent board member. The Arizona Republic's candidate guide lists him with "No information provided," and we found no campaign site or questionnaire answers from him in the sources we checked. His public record is his voting record on the board itself, which voters can review in meeting minutes; beyond that, the campaign record is effectively blank.

Michael Abramson III

A social worker and policy advocate with a master's in social work. His state Capitol work focused on childcare access and increasing behavioral health services, after he says he saw firsthand in 2020 how existing systems were leaving families behind.
  • Stated priorities: a holistic approach to education, advocating for funding and resources for teachers, improving enrollment rates, and developing policy jointly among parents, staff, and district leadership.

Verification notes

  • School board campaigns file finance reports with Maricopa County. No raised or spent totals for these campaigns appeared in the coverage we reviewed; we print no totals rather than guess.
  • Do not confuse this district with Tempe Union High School District, whose 2026 board election was cancelled, or with Kyrene, the other elementary district serving parts of Tempe, which does have a contested race this year.

How to vote without getting your ballot rejected

  • Mail it by Tuesday, October 27, 2026. After that day, do not mail it: use a drop box or a vote center instead.
  • It must be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3. Postmarks do not count.
  • Sign and date the affidavit envelope, and write a current phone number on it.
  • Leaving any item blank is allowed. In this race you may vote for one candidate, two, or none; it does not affect the rest of your ballot.

Sources

Ballot Math: analysis only, no endorsements. Every candidate in this race got the same template: background, stated priorities, the record that exists, and honest notes where the record is thin.