Can New York City Improve Its Lackluster Voter Registration Record?
New York City Hall Zack Frank / Shutterstock.com
A newly passed voter assistance bill mandates city agency compliance with a 2000 state law that a study found was being routinely ignored.
With voter turnout hitting all-time lows for New York City’s municipal elections last year and only two-thirds of New Yorkers with up-to-date voter registration information, city agencies are facing more stringent mandates to provide voter registration forms and actively assist residents in filling them out and sending them in.
The City Council on Tuesday passed the Expanded Agency-Based Voter Registration bill, which builds upon a New York state voter registration assistance law passed in 2000 that covered 18 agencies. But a report from the Center for Popular Democracy, Citizens Union, Brennan Center, NYPIRG and Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund found routine failures in compliance.
The new bill will make seven additional agencies subject to the strengthened guidelines, which includes a 60-day deadline for existing agencies to offer voter registration assistance and a December 2015 deadline for agencies to integrate their forms with voter registration forms.
“Voting is the bedrock of our community: It is how we as New Yorkers demand our rights and make our voices heard,” Council member Ben Kallos, who chairs the Governmental Operations Committee, said in a statement. “The Expanded Agency-Based Voter Registration Law will take us one step closer to the goal of every eligible New Yorker being registered to vote.”
A second bill that strengthens agency reporting compliance on voter registration assistance mandates from the 2000 law also passed the council on Tuesday.
In July, Mayor Bill de Blasio issued Directive 1, which required city agencies to report on their compliance with the 2000 law, including filing semi-annual implementation reports.
Steven Carbó, director of Voting Rights and Democracy Initiatives at the Center for Popular Democracy, noted in a statement that the new voter registration assistance bill will show that New York City is “blazing the trail for other cities to follow" on proactive voter registration efforts by municipal agencies.
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