If Nothing Else, Vote on Voting This November

Though it’s an off-cycle election year, there are two huge voting innovations New Yorkers can — and should — vote on this fall.

There’s an election coming up. Before you say, “Duh,” please let me finish. There’s an election coming up now, in just a few weeks, on Nov. 5, 2019. 

We New Yorkers already have a losing record when it comes to showing up to the polls. Even in a boom year like 2018, New York state still ranked 42nd nationwide in voter turnout. In the Big Apple, it’s even worse. We trickle into polling stations in dribbles so light we may as well be a mildly leaky roof on a rainy day — hardly a democratic force to be reckoned with. And let’s not even mention the anemic attendance the city usually inspires during an off-cycle general election like this one, when most Democrats on the ballot are assured a win in a town where they outnumber Republicans six to one. 

However, if you need a reason (beyond civic engagement) to get your butt to a polling station this fall, let it be to vote for changes to our long-outdated voting system. That's an issue that is up for grabs, and could allow thousands more New Yorkers to vote in the future.

Here are two ways you can vote for voting this November:

Vote Early

Thanks to a massive push from grassroots organizations and new progressive blood in the state legislature, New York finally has an early voting law. For the first time in history, 4.6 million registered New Yorkers will have an alternative to descending on the polls on a single shambolic Tuesday. Instead, they will have 10 days — including two weekends — to vote. Early voting will debut on Saturday, Oct. 26, and will run through Sunday, Nov. 3, 2019. The city’s regular Election Day will be held on Nov. 5.

It’s crucial for as many of New Yorkers as possible to take early voting for a test drive. Let’s get in there and kick the tires — not just because our presidential primaries are right around the corner in April 2020 (though that is a solid reason). We also need to show our city’s historically reluctant Board of Elections that this is a much-needed program in a metropolis where voters care about democracy — but are run so ragged trying to make ends meet that asking them to turn up on one weekday is tantamount to shutting most of them out. 

Good governance groups that have worked closely with the mayor’s office and the BOE, including Common Cause NY and VoteEarlyNY, are waiting for our firsthand accounts of the experience. The more they get, the more pressure there will be on the Board of Elections to do better in 2020. And this shouldn’t have to be said, but it does: The more New Yorkers show up to the polls, the more say we have on how our city is run. With the much bigger voting window, you can still work 60 hours, do standup, do barre, get stuck for an hour on the M train and get to the polls with enough time to Tweet about “Joker.” Here’s where you can see and study a sample ballot tailored to your district: https://ballotpedia.org/Sample_Ballot_Lookup. 

SUPER-IMPORTANT KNOW-BEFORE-YOU-GO FACT: Your early polling place is not the same as your regular Election Day place. It’ll be a different location, and you can only use the one assigned to your address. You can look up your early voting site at www.voteearlyny.org or at https://nyc.pollsitelocator.com/search. When you enter your address, it will bring up both your early voting site and your site for Nov. 5. There are 61 early voting sites across the city, with nine in Manhattan, nine on Staten Island, 11 in the Bronx, 14 in Queens and 18 in Brooklyn. Is the new setup as convenient as it should be? Resoundingly no. Advocates are pressing for its expansion next year. But it’s at least a step in the right direction in an ornery old town that kicks like a mule when pulled toward increased fairness.

Vote on Ranked-Choice Voting

The second way you can vote for better voting is to take part in this election’s 2019 city charter referendum. It’s a rare chance for everyday New Yorkers to vote on amendments to the city’s constitution, and will take the form of five yes-or-no questions on the back of your ballot. 

The ballot proposal with the greatest potential for immediate impact is Question #1: Should the city adopt ranked-choice voting? Many voting equity orgs say, “Absolutely.” 

Ranked-choice voting (RCV) would remove the need for costly runoff elections, would ensure a minimum 50% majority winner, and would reduce the stress of having to choose one flawed candidate you may have major reservations about. Voters will be allowed to choose their top five candidates in a city- or borough-wide primary or special election, numbering them in descending order of preference. If after the initial count there is no one in the top five with a 50% majority, an automatic runoff takes place — one that does not require voters to return to the polls. Instead, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes gets eliminated, and that person’s votes are automatically redistributed among the top four remaining candidates. This process is repeated until a majority candidate emerges with at least 50% of the vote. 

Here’s why voting rights advocates think this will be a giant improvement on the current system: In citywide primaries and special elections, New York often gets a boatload of Democratic candidates. Under current law, any one of these candidates can win first place without a clear majority. All they have to do is get the most votes, even if they never actually top 50%. In the February 2019 special election for public advocate, Jumaane Williams won with just 33% of the vote, in a race that saw a gladiator-style contest between 17 candidates. He was able to take office on this margin because the city does not mandate runoffs for special elections. And since only 8% of eligible voters turned out to vote in that race, we now have a citywide officeholder who was elected by a tiny fraction of city residents. 

In the case of regular primary elections, current charter law says a citywide candidate must get a minimum 40% of the vote to win. When this doesn’t happen, the city is required to hold a runoff election two weeks later. New York City runoffs cost taxpayers millions of dollars and often draw dramatically fewer voters. This was the case in 2009, when Bill de Blasio clinched the public advocate seat in a runoff that cost the city $15 million, and for which turnout was under 10%.

A FairVote study of California cities that have adopted ranked-choice voting, including San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, points to a variety of benefits to voters. Being ranked pushes candidates to reach out to a much broader base, when in the past, winning was often predicated on bringing out a large crew of their core supporters. With RCV, being someone’s Number Two choice could be a real boon in the final count, and reaching out to the city’s broader electorate will be much more important.

Ranked-choice voting has also been shown to increase turnout — with voters agreeing that the ability to rank candidates in order of preference is more satisfying than being held to one winner-takes-all choice. 

The program also promotes a greater focus on the issues during campaigns, rather than the usual recipe of personal attacks and charm offensives. Data on RCV also points to an increase in women and people of color running for office, with substantial uptick in winning elections for women of color. Candidates of color and women have shown themselves more willing to run when an election system encourages broad-base consensus over first-past-the-post divisiveness. According to FairVote’s research, “Primaries and runoffs tend to have much lower voter turnout than November elections, with primary and runoff electorates being disproportionately older, whiter and wealthier than the general electorate.”

In addition to several major cities in California, RCV is currently being used in Minneapolis and Maine, as well as across Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Besides the RCV question, the four other proposals on the back of the ballot address similarly far-reaching issues for New York. If passed, these measures will grant our Civilian Complaint Review Board greater oversight of the N.Y.P.D., will change how new construction and rezoning decisions are made, will affect how long city employees must wait before they become lobbyists, and will greatly impact how the city saves and spends its money.

In the 2018 midterms, New Yorkers got to vote on three charter revisions that resulted in an increase in public fund-matching for city candidates, the creation of the NYC Civic Engagement Commission and term limits on community board members. Before that, the last time the city held a referendum on the charter was in 1989. So... yeah. It doesn’t come up very often. And hey — the last time New Yorkers could vote on a Saturday, was, well, never. 

So even if you think this fall’s general election races for Queens DA, Bronx DA, public advocate, and civil court judges are not worth showing up for, remember you also have what may be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to effect direct action on how your city is run, and your vote may just empower a huge block of underrepresented New Yorkers.