NEW YORK’S STRICT REGISTRATION LAWS BLOCK SOME VOTERS

Posted by NYPIRG on April 18, 2016 at 7:53 am

For the first time in years, New York State’s Presidential primary is important in determining who will be the nominees from both the Republican and Democratic parties.  No one knew how this primary season would play out.  A year ago, the Democrats looked like they were lining up behind Hillary Clinton – now many voters are “feeling the Bern” as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders makes a spirited run.  On the Republican side, no one predicted the rise of Donald Trump as the leading candidate.

But both parties are having highly contested primaries and New York voters can play an important role.  Well, at least some of them can.

New York State has very restrictive political party enrollment rules.  For all elections, New Yorkers have to be enrolled at least 25 days before an election in order to vote.  That deadline is among the longest in the nation.  In order to vote in the upcoming November general election, voters will have to have been enrolled by early October.

The same rule applies to the Presidential primary.  If a New Yorker has never been registered to vote, they could have done so by March 25th.  Any new voter who registered after that day cannot vote in the Presidential primary.

But for those who wished to vote in the April Presidential primary, and who were already registered to vote, they needed to have been registered in the political party of their choice before October 9, 2015.

That’s right, for New Yorkers who wished to change their party enrollment because they were inspired by the visions offered by the Republican (in addition to Trump, there are candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich – Ben Carson remained on New York’s ballot as well) or Democratic candidates they would have had to make that decision nearly six months ago.

Of course, virtually no New Yorker knew of any of these rules and there are likely to be many angry New Yorkers at the polls during this week’s Presidential primary.  In fact, many may be confused since they have been watching the ongoing presidential battle, where people in some states simply show up for caucuses to vote.  In states with early voting, residents have weeks to vote, and in some states voters can cast ballots in any party’s primary.

But not in New York.  As a result, there have been media reports that some counties know that and are trying to short-circuit the problem.

On Long Island, for example, it has been reported that Suffolk County’s elections commissioners have sent warning letters to nearly 7,000 voters who switched parties after the deadline.  The board’s letter notes that “New York is one of 11 states with ‘closed’ primaries in which residents who are registered in a party can vote in that party’s primary.

According to the newspaper Newsday, the letter sent to these voters stated, “Since you submitted your change of enrollment . . . after the legal deadline, your change of party . . . will become effective seven days after the general election day 2016.” That means their first presidential primary vote will have to wait until 2020.

And to add to the confusion, in some areas of the state there will be special elections to fill vacated legislative seats.  For example, the legislative positions held by disgraced former Assembly Speaker Silver and Senate Majority Leader Skelos are up for consideration.  For those elections, all voters can vote – and had to have been registered by March 25, but still could not have switched parties after October 9th.

If a New Yorker wants to know of their status, the state Board of Elections does have a website where he or she can check, go to voterlookup.elections.state.ny.us/votersearch.aspx.  Or the voter can contact their county Board of Elections.

Keeping track of all of these deadlines can make a voter’s head spin.  But those are the rules in New York.

Those rules must change.

Leaders like Governor Cuomo have the opportunity and responsibility to do a better job pressing for reforms, like Same Day Registration and Automatic Registration, and ending disenfranchising statutes—like New York’s inane rules for changing party enrollment. That process can have some voters waiting 22 months after changing their party to vote in a Presidential primary election.