NY Student Voter Registration Day

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It was another banner year for Common Cause New York at Student Voter Registration Day.

Last year at Brooklyn Tech High School, they were able to assist 631 seniors at Brooklyn Tech in becoming voters.

This year they surpassed that goal, registering 828 students to vote in just one day.

Student Voter Registration Day (SVRD) is a program run by NYC-Votes, the New York City Council, and Common Cause New York.

In year two, SVRD tripled in size, going from just over 20 schools to 65 schools participating this year.

The hope is one day that each school in the city will participate.

By educating and registering 17 year-olds to vote in schools, we can go a long way to boosting civic participation and hopefully create many more lifetime voters.

A big “Thank You” goes out to all of our hard-working volunteers whose efforts made this year such a success.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

NYC Board of Elections Commissioner Selection

After nearly two months of revealing little to nothing to the public about how it will pick a new Board of Elections commissioner, the New York City Council on Tuesday promised it will make a pick with unprecedented transparency.

“The City Council takes its role in appointing new commissioners to the Board of Elections extremely seriously and the reforms the Council has put in place will ensure the appointment process is fair, transparent and public,” Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said in a statement.

The vow comes one day after the Daily News reported that the co-leaders of the Manhattan delegation, Councilwoman Margaret Chin and Councilman Corey Johnson, threatened to shut out lawmakers who leaked details about the group's private, split vote on a nominee for the job.

The Daily News ran a series of reports on the power struggle between Mark-Viverito and Manhattan Democratic Party Chairman Keith Wright for control of the appointment, which comes with the opportunity to make patronage hires at the Board.

Those reports included stories on Mark-Viverito wresting control of the pick from Wright; his nomination of a replacement for former Board Chairman Gregory Soumas (attorney Lenore Kramer, who later withdrew); the names and bios of those competing for the job; and an account of last week's secret vote to recommend Board supervisor Alan Schulkin to the full Council.

The Council's new open-door process will include, according to Mark-Viverito's office:

- Convening a public hearing of the Council’s Committee on Rules, Privileges and Elections, at which candidates will testify and answer questions, and where the public will have an opportunity to testify.

- Providing potential appointees with a detailed written questionnaire which will be available at the public hearing.

- Asking nominees to review and analyze the NYC Department of Investigation's report on problems at the Board of Elections.

The hearing is scheduled for Sept. 17.

Said Councilman Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn), head of the Rules Committee, in the same release:

“I’m proud of the reforms the City Council has put in place to make the Board of Elections appointment process more transparent, including the first-ever public hearing.  These reforms show how serious the Council is about fair elections, and will help bring long overdue changes to the BOE."

Good-government groups have pressed the Council to open the selection process to the public, including offering suggestions for questions any nominee should have to answer before a confirmation.

CLICK HERE to read NYPIRG Statement on the Appointment of New BOE Commissioners.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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The Promises and Perils of Internet Voting

On 12/18/2013, the New York City Council's Committee on Governmental Operations chaired by Gale A. Brewer, the next Manhattan Borough President, and the Committee on Technology chaired by Fernando Cabrera held an Oversight Hearing on "The Promises and Perils of Internet Voting".  It lasted 2 1/2 hours.

They heard from:

Michael J. Ryan, Executive Director of New York City Board of Elections
Brian Kavanagh, Rep. 74th Assembly District
Eric Fredman, New York City Campaign Finance Board
Douglas A. Kellner, Co-Chair and Commissioner, New York State Board of Elections
Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause/NY
Kate Duran, Board Member of League of Woman Voters
Susan Greenhall, Verified Voting Foundation

All the witnesses agreed that internet voting was not ready for prime time for the following reasons:

1. Security of electronic transmissions and the opportunity to corrupt the website software were not ready for this type of transactions.

2. The inability to keep the privacy of the vote.

3. The inability to provide campaigns' monitoring of the vote.

4. Current cultural rituals and the possible disenfranchisement of certain voters.

5. The failure of the D.C.'s internet voting for military and overseas voters pilot. It was hacked in 36 hours.

6. The HAVA requirement of a paper trail.  The voter would not be able to see the marked paper ballot before it disappeared into the cloud.

The discussion then moved to the main reason for this type of voting, reducing the lines at the voting poll site.  These were some of the suggestions:

1. No Excuse Absentee Ballots.

2. Early Voting

3. Electronic Poll Books (laptop, tablets).  This would reduce the time it takes before you actually get to vote.  Some of the benefits and problems with this system:

A. WiFi Accessibility at current polling sites, the cost to upgrade the sites.

B. Allow the poll worker to determine you are in the right poll site.

C. Direct you to the correct poll site.

D. Record you voted, not manually entered later.  This would prevent someone voting more then once.

E. Allow the poll worker to compare your stored signature and in the future compare your stored photo.

F. On-Demand Ballot Printing - Using your stored information, a blank ballot could be printed for you Election District, in your preferred language.

This was discussion on the new Online Voter Registration and Update system now being used through the Department of Motor Vehicle.  Everyone liked the concept of the new system and asked when it could be used by all the government agencies.  The one negative is it currently only allows voters who are drivers to use it.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Still No Redistricting Map for New York City Council

The once-a-decade process of redrawing the New York City Council's district lines is downright confounding to most people. The process became even more confusing after the commission responsible for drawing the lines pulled its final draft plan from consideration in December.

That set the schedule back and will led to new public hearings this month. The first is scheduled today.

What residents of tightly-knit communities across New York City might not realize is that if they depend at all on public and private services, the Council members who represent them and the shapes of the districts they reside in matter far more than they think.

Unlike state representatives, Council members can dispense thousands of dollars in discretionary funds to community programs and capital upgrades like hospital and street repairs. The funding, often characterized as pork, can still allow local nonprofits to thrive. A Council member who is actively engaged in representing their community can stave off firehouse closures, help restore a crucial bus line or repair a library.

When neighborhoods or communities of common interest are united in a single district, a Council member is more likely to pay attention to them. If a neighborhood is carved up into several different districts, it becomes secondary or tertiary to multiple Council members. This means it can lose out on crucial funding.

The 15-member Districting Commission is the body appointed by the mayor as well as the majority and minority caucuses of the Council to redraw the City Council lines. The commission also has an executive director and staff.

After finalizing its plan, the commission must send it to the Council for a vote. The U.S. Dept. of Justice must ultimately approve the district lines that the commission draws.

Some have hailed the city’s Districting Commission as a vast improvement over other mechanisms for redistricting, like on the state level, where elected officials can draw their own districts to protect themselves from challengers. While the City Charter rigidly defines the boundaries of City Council districts, state Senate and Assembly districts can end up resembling bizarre puzzle pieces or Rorschach blots.

But good government groups and political insiders have questioned the independence of the city’s commission.

The next round of public hearings and meetings by the commission could be wrapped up by February 2013, with a new revised district plan delivered to the Council for a vote. The Council would then have three weeks to adopt or reject the plan.

We hope the final plan is adopted prior to March 5, 2013. If not, the current lines would stay for another 10 years.

The Districting Commission must draw lines that comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was created to protect politically-cohesive minority groups from having their voting power diluted. Section 5 of the act applies to jurisdictions in specific states with histories of discriminatory electoral practices. With its large minority populations, Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx all fall under Section 5.

UPDATE
The Commission will make revisions to the district maps by January 23rd, with a decision on adopting the revised map coming a week later. The City Council then has three weeks to decide whether to vote on the new district lines or send them back to the Commission for more hearings.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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