{"id":889,"date":"2014-01-30T14:21:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-30T19:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/?p=889"},"modified":"2015-05-12T06:46:07","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T10:46:07","slug":"new-york-needs-to-bolster-its-voting-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/new-york-needs-to-bolster-its-voting-system\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Needs to Bolster Its Voting System"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen: http:\/\/wamc.org\/post\/capitol-connection-1349<\/a><\/p>\n

During the 2012 election, far too many Americans had to stand in long lines for hours in order to cast their ballot.\u00a0 Voters who were stuck waiting were all too frequently lower-income and non-white.\u00a0 The President promised to act, in order to ensure that such a disgraceful situation would never happen again.<\/p>\n

The President convened a blue-ribbon panel jointly headed by the top lawyers for the Obama and Romney campaigns.\u00a0 Last week, the panel issued its findings.\u00a0 The report, The American Voting Experience: Report and Recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, called for \u2013 among other proposals \u2013 expanded early voting, online registration, and a goal of ensuring that no voter waited on line for more than 30 minutes to cast their ballot.<\/p>\n

The report was the result of a six-month-long study.\u00a0 The panel held public hearings as well as meetings with experts and election administrators.<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s findings came as New York is once again debating how to strengthen its democracy.\u00a0 And while most of that debate has been over weak ethics laws and a “pay-to-play” political culture, the state\u2019s obstacles to voting is another big problem.<\/p>\n

Public participation in New York\u2019s elections continues its downward trend.\u00a0 New York State had a “voting eligible population” of nearly 13 million in 2012.\u00a0 The state Board of Elections reports that nearly 11 million New Yorkers are considered “actively” registered to vote.\u00a0 That means that roughly 2 million eligible citizens were not actively registered to vote.<\/p>\n

In addition, New York State has one of the worst voter turnouts in the nation \u2013 it was ranked 47th<\/sup> in the nation in voter turnout in 2012.<\/p>\n

Why?\u00a0 The elections system itself just doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

New York\u2019s system is based on the two major political parties running the state\u2019s elections.\u00a0 The theory was that with the parties watching over each other\u2019s shoulders, the public\u2019s interests would be protected.<\/p>\n

But what we\u2019ve gotten instead is a system in which millions of eligible voters are not registered and a state with one of the worst voter turnouts in the nation.<\/p>\n

In addition, New York\u2019s elections system has become a refuge for political party patronage.\u00a0 Local party leaders are often themselves<\/em> chosen for leadership positions on county election boards. \u00a0For example,in ten of the 57 upstate counties in 2013,at least one election commissioner or deputy commissioner was the Democrat or Republican county party chair or vice chair. Party leaders as election commissioners oversee primary election to the party leadership posts they hold and to which they may seek reelection, an inherent conflict of interest.<\/p>\n

Are the party faithful the best choices for running the state\u2019s elections?\u00a0 Not at all.<\/p>\n

So what should be done?<\/p>\n

The first step is to get rid of the Board of Elections.\u00a0 The state should follow the guidance provided by the President\u2019s report and replace it with an independent state election commission staffed by non-partisan professionals.<\/p>\n

And in order to help boost voter participation, the state should allow New Yorkers to register and vote on Election Day.\u00a0 Each year, just as interest in elections and candidates begins to peak, potential voters find that the deadline for registering to vote has already passed.\u00a0 Such a system would dramatically increase voting rates.\u00a0 Voter participation rates in “same-day” states are traditionally among the highest in the country.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, New York\u2019s elections system is broken beyond repair.\u00a0 Boards and their employees have little or no accountability to the public.\u00a0 The results are clear: millions not registered to vote, shocking low voting rates, the major parties colluding against minor parties and too often the public interest.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to end New York\u2019s patronage-driven, ineffective Boards of Elections.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope this year\u2019s reforms fix New York\u2019s elections system.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all for now.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be keeping an eye on the Capitol and will talk to you again next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen: http:\/\/wamc.org\/post\/capitol-connection-1349 During the 2012 election, far too many Americans had to stand in long lines for hours in order to cast their ballot.\u00a0 Voters who were stuck waiting were all too frequently lower-income and non-white.\u00a0 The President promised to act, in order to ensure that such a disgraceful situation would never happen again. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[58,29,59,28],"class_list":["post-889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-early-voting","tag-election","tag-online-registration","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1484,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions\/1484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}