The Independent View: Independence Party Founder Invited to Advise NYC Charter Commission on Nonpartisan Elections‏

Independence Party founder Harry Kresky, who is the nations leading legal advocate for independent voters, has been invited to join a panel of experts advising the NYC Charter Revision Commission on the subject of nonpartisan elections at a public forum. He will be appearing at the NYC Charter Revision Commissions forum on Wednesday, June 2nd at Lehman College in the Bronx.

The June 2nd forum is a critical moment in the process of determining whether an initiative for nonpartisan elections will go on the ballot, either 2010 or 2011, for voter approval. Your presence at the forum is urgently needed!

If you think we need to open the primaries in NYC, then we need your help this Wednesday at Lehman College. The Independence Party is mobilizing members to attend in order to make plain that nonpartisan elections -- which would allow NYC's nearly 1 million independents to be part of the primary process -- is a popular issue with broad public support and should go on the ballot for voter approval.

HISTORY

By the 1950s, more than 60 percent of municipalities nationwide had adopted nonpartisan elections. Today, 41 of the 50 largest cities in the U.S. with an elected mayor use nonpartisan elections including Los Angles, Houston, San Diego, Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Francisco, Boston and Seattle.

• Voting in local elections is declining. The number of non-enrolled voters is growing rapidly, particularly among youth and recent immigrants.
• The ballot petition procedures candidates must follow are famously burdensome and knocking opponents off the ballot absurdly common.
• Party bosses still seek to stifle competition and exact patronage.
• Perhaps most significantly, many candidates win their party primary with less than a third of the votes, with general elections serving as confirmations rather than contests.

It is not surprising, given the sum of these variables, that incumbent re-election rates approach 100 percent, as party bosses continue to wield power. The system is indeed broken. The city’s independent voters, ever-growing in number, are effectively disenfranchised, since the party primary decides all but a few elections.

How would nonpartisan elections work?

Since the Charter revision of 1989, Special elections to fill a vacancy in the term of a City Council member have been conducted on a nonpartisan basis. The current state rules for petitions are:
• For any office to be filled by all voters of the City of NY, 7,500 signatures are needed.
• For any office to be filled in the City of NY by all the voters of any City Council District, 2,700 signatures are needed.

Speaker Gifford Miller, Majority Leader Joel Rivera, and Minority Leader James Oddo were first elected to the City Council in nonpartisan elections. And earlier, there was a spirited nonpartisan election for a vacant City Council seat in Bay Ridge.

As the commission explores the design of nonpartisan elections, a number of variables will be considered. These include:
• Which municipal offices should be covered?
• When should the elections be held, when should the new arrangements go into effect.
• How would candidates get on the ballot?
• How would the nonpartisan format affect the city’s campaign finance program and vice versa.
• How would votes be counted, I support Top Two go to the General Election in November.
• What would be the role of political parties?

As we examine the experience of other cities and consider the lessons they hold for New York, it is important to note several features unique to New York that can serve to enhance the effects of nonpartisan elections. New York has a generous campaign finance program, and a widely distributed Voter Guide. Contributing to civic debate and voter information in New York are the number of competing daily newspapers, weekly papers, cable news stations, ethnic and general radio stations, and powerful unions and other organized groups.

Voter turnout: Some have asserted that nonpartisan elections lead to reduced voter turnout. The research here is scanty, and often fails to compare turnouts in large cities. A further contradiction in opponents’ arguments concerns the assertion that in the absence of party labels voters will not have a cue as to a candidate’s views. Yet in the Democratic primary, where most elections are decided, voters differentiate among candidates without any party label to assist them. They do this by using information gleaned from the Voter Guide, the community newspapers, and the abundance of campaign literature that the campaign finance program funds. In New York City, at least, this argument lacks salience and is demeaning to voters.

Minority participation: In a city with a majority “minority” population, this is an important issue. Nonpartisan elections are held in forty-one of the nation’s fifty largest cities. Compared to partisan election cities in recent elections, nonpartisan election cities have elected a higher percentage of black and Latino mayors – 34 percent vs. 22 percent. At the least, this suggests than minorities are likely to do at least as well in nonpartisan cities as in partisan ones.

At bottom, the issue is whether we continue to allow a small group of party officials to determine both who gets on the ballot and who can vote in the elections that matter or do we expand opportunity and access. This is not a matter of abstract “good government” principle, but rather a response to the increasing numbers of voters who feel left out of the process as it operates today.

I will attend the forum and will be part of the independents making our case to the Charter Revision Commission on Wednesday, June 2nd. We need 125 independents in the room holding up our beautiful new poster (pictured below) to show that nonpartisan elections is a popular issue with broad public support.