Why Don't New Yorkers Vote?

Tonight, I attended this discussion.

The moderator was Ekow N. Yankah, a Professor of Law at the Cardozo School of Law and the Co-Chair of the New York Democratic Lawyer's Counsel (NYDLC).

The panel experts were:

- Susan Lerner, Executive Director, Common Cause NY
- Douglas A, Kellner, Co-Chair, New York State Board of Elections
- Benjamin Kallos, Council Member, 5th District, Eastside Manhattan
- Brian Kavanagh, Assemblyman, 74th District, Eastside Manhattan

The discussion began with the panel's standard reasons registered voter do not vote;

1. Long lines at the polls.
2. Lack of information about candidates or issues.
3. Lack of choice.
4. The feeling their vote does not count.
5. Unreadable ballots.
6. Absentee ballots can be challenged by candidates or their lawyers but the voter has no standing in court.

No one spoke about the over 2.8 million registered New York voters who can not vote in the states primary.

The panels suggestions:

1. Electronic registration.
2. Early voting.
3. Same-day registration.
4. Vote by mail.
5. Better Ballot design.
6. Propositional Voting.
7. Instant Run-off Voting.
8. Register 16 year olds, so they are automatically ready to vote when they get to the legal age.

Ben Kallos suggested we should have simulated voting in school to get the youth to learn how important it is to participate in the candidate selection process.

Some one suggested we eliminate the primary and use Instant Run-Off voting with all eligible candidates on the ballot, with a 50% plus 1 the minimum to win.

What are your suggestions to improve voting in your state?

The following statement is by Council Member Ben Kallos, Chair of the Governmental Operations Committee (which oversees the Board of Elections) following a City Council hearing to consider Board of Elections Commissioner appointments:

"Public posting for jobs and an anti-nepotism policy are one step closer to adoption by the Board of Elections, with the three Democratic Commissioner candidates swearing under oath that they will introduce and vote in favor of the reforms at their first meeting.  All three Democratic Commissioner candidates affirmed that they would return to testify under oath before the Committee on Governmental Operations upon request without need for subpoenas, ensuring future Commissioner oversight.

Thanks to an unprecedented City Council hearing and public questionnaire to select Democratic Commissioners for the Board of Elections, all of the candidates affirmed support for the recommendations laid out in a 2013 Department of Investigations report.  All of this progress was only made possible by a public hearing of the Rules Committee under the leadership of Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito and its Chair Brad Lander.  Their steady support for reform of the Board of Elections has already enabled key progress, and I look forward to working with the Commissioners as partners in getting the Board of Elections running properly."










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Colorado Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act

On Friday, Colorado's Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper signed a bill to overhaul Colorado’s elections system to include same-day voter registration and mailing ballots to all voters.

It’s called the Colorado Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act, and it redefines how elections are run here in Colorado.

The Colorado bill allows same-day registration and requires the state to send every eligible voter a ballot by mail. Voters may still choose to vote in person at any number of voting centers, not just a single designated precinct. They will also have the option to vote by mail or drop off their ballot.

The law also eliminates the category of “inactive” voters, or those who skip even one election.

Alvina Vasquez with The Campaign for a Strong Colorado said it’s a win for all Colorado voters. She was in the crowd showing her support as the governor signed the bill at the Capitol.

Vasquez said the law will impact many voters that have the right to vote, but not access to voting such as veterans, disabled people, and those from lower-income families.

While the bill passed with unanimous support from democrats, not a single republican voted for it. Republicans have raised concerns about potential voter fraud, saying that same-day registration makes it too easy to cheat the system.

Secretary of State Scott Gessler said same-day voter registration doesn’t give election officials enough time to truly verify people’s eligibility, and opens the door to voter fraud and mistakes.

Another major concern for Gessler is the timeline. He said it will require a major update to software systems, which is something that could take years. With only months to do so, Colorado’s chief election official called it a “recipe for disaster.”










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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NAN Largest Convention in the History of the Organization

I attended the 15th Annual National Convention of Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network (NAN). It took place, April 3-6 in New York City, at the Sheraton Hotel.

It was the largest attended NAN annual national convention and included delegates from over sixty NAN chapters across the United States.

There was a forum on Gun Control, Gun Violence: Addressing the Real Reform, and both the family of Hadiyah Pendleton, the 15-year-old who was fatally shot a week after performing with her high school band at the Inauguration of President Barack Obama, and the family of Trayvon Martin were in attendance. NAN delegates were asked to put pressure on their Senators to vote on stronger Gun legislation that could come up for debate in the Senate this week.

Several officials from the Obama Administration attended in Special Plenary Presentations: Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Regina M. Benjamin, Surgeon General of the United States, Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

Others spoke at ticketed events: Leading members of Congress and activists such as Martin Luther King, III, National Urban League President Marc Morial, NAACP President Ben Jealous, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice President Kerry Kennedy.

The convention concluded with a major announcement by Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and President of NAN, regarding action plans formulated during the convention.

NAN will start an “Alert Watch” since the Supreme Court is deciding on Affirmative Action and Section 5 of The Voting Rights Act. NAN has issued an alert that will go into action in the event that the Supreme Court overturns either of the these policies. NAN will mobilize activists to urge Congressional action and to put pressure on the academic and corporate community if Affirmative Action is lost.

Other highlights of the national convention included the Measuring the Movement forum on the final day that brought together three generations of civil rights leaders to discuss strategies on what can be done to sustain civil rights and the social justice movement regardless of what the court’s decisions may be. The forum featured civil rights leaders and a review by some of the legends of the civil rights movement regarding the progress made and mistakes made in the fifty years since the “March in Washington.” The Forum included civil rights icons Rev. Joseph Lowery, Juanita Abernathy, Otis Moss, Jr., and Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., among others.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Protecting Our Vote During the Midterm Elections

I just attended a Political Panel called "Protecting Our Vote During the Midterm Elections" at the 15th Annual National Convention of Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network (NAN). It is taking place this week in New York City at the Sheraton Hotel.

First, some history about NAN.

NAN was founded in New York City in 1991, as a social justice, social policy, activist organization born of America's historic civil rights struggle. NAN is in the forefront of challenging today's threats to equal treatment under the law, whether it is police abuse, misconduct or racial profiling, economic injustice such as a lack of access to capital and opportunity; or social policy injustice such as education equality, voting rights, immigration reform, gender equality, marriage equality, gun control, health care, housing or worker's rights.

Reverend Al Sharpton is NAN's founding president and has led the organization for 22 years. He is a noted civil rights leader, host of MSNBC's Political Nation, and hosts a weekly radio broadcast on Saturday from NAN's national headquarters in central Harlem. NAN has grown to over 50 chapters across America and maintains offices in Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Atlanta, Georgia; Detroit, Michigan; Las Vegas, Nevada; Los Angeles, California and Miami, Florida. NAN's website is at: www.nationalactionnetwork.net.

Last year, during the national election cycle, NAN took the lead in pushing back the real threat to voting rights by exposing the efforts of many states to suppress the vote of primarily poor, elderly and minority voters through restrictive Voter ID laws. NAN's work was hugely successful as demonstrated by the unprecedented turnout of voters and their refusal to be intimidated or turned away from the polls.

The panel's moderator was Reverend Al Sharpton.

The panel members were:

Barbara R. Arnwine - President and Executive Director, The Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Nicole Austin-Hillery - Director and Counsel, The Brennan Center for Justice
Bishop Victor T. Curry - President, NAN, Miami-Dade County, Florida Chapter, Pastor, New Birth Baptist Church, Miami, Florida
Patrick Gaspard - Executive Director, Democratic National Committee
Bishop Bobby Hilton - President, NAN Cincinnati, OH Chapter
Rep. Marcia L. Fudge - Chairwoman, Congressional Black Caucus, 113th Congress
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries - Congressman, 8th District of NY
Rep. Gregory W. Meeks - Congressman, 5th District of NY
Laura Murphy - Director, Washington Legislative Office, American Civil Liberties Union
Rep. Charles B. Rangel - Congressman, 13th District of NY
Rep. Alicia Reece - State Rep., 33rd House District of Ohio
Rep. Joseph Crowley - Congressman, 14th District of NY

During the first round the panel talked about these issues: Voter ID Laws, Reduced Early Voting and Church Sunday Voting, Reduced Polling Places, Forced Provisional Ballots that are Not Counted, and Misinformation Tactics. The other issue was the Supreme Court June decisions about the Voting Rights Act Law and Section 5 Preclearance.

Then each panel member gave their ideas for the upcoming 2013 and 2014 elections and called this the "New Civil Rights Movement".

Some of the ideas were:

- Calling out corporations that are using shareholder's money to fund organizations that are responsible for the above tactics, using the term "There has to be consequences".

- Get involved in local Judge elections since they will be deciding some of these issues.

- This is a national issue, but now it is more important to get involved locally in a state by state fight.

There will be work to create a state by state agenda to first decide how to fight current situations and also preempt new ones. The Brenner Center had a three part program: reform the election system, increase early voting, and create national standards for each part of the election process.

The Justice Department has been preparing their ideas about changing our voting system. 

Assistant Attorney General Perez spoke at the George Washington University Law School Symposium on Friday, November 16, 2012. He discussed the Civil Rights Division’s work to protect the fundamental civil right that is the lifeblood of our democracy: the right to vote.

Some of the changes addressed what we can do both to protect the right to vote, and to improve the voting process:

1. Ensure that every eligible person entering a social service office can register to vote.

2. It should be the government’s responsibility to automatically register citizens to vote, by compiling, from databases that already exist, a list of all eligible residents in each jurisdiction. Of course, these lists would be used solely to administer elections and would protect essential privacy rights.

3. Election officials should work together to establish a program of permanent, portable registration – so that voters who move can vote at their new polling place on Election Day. Until that happens, we should implement fail-safe procedures to correct voter-roll errors and omissions, by allowing every voter to cast a regular, non-provisional ballot on Election Day. Several states have already taken this step.

4. Same-day registration is a reform we should be considering seriously – it would both facilitate election administration and promote electoral participation. For the 2012 election, eight states plus the District of Columbia had same-day registration in place. (Two more states have recently enacted it and will implement it next year – California, and Connecticut.) And we know that it increases participation: in both the 2008 and 2010 general elections, each of the eight states with same-day registration had higher turnout of the voting-eligible population than the national average. In fact, for the 2008 presidential election, five of the six states with the highest turnout in the country were states with same-day registration. Preliminary turnout estimates for the 2012 election show that this pattern will likely continue.

5. Voter fraud is not acceptable. But we also need to reform deceptive election practices and dishonest efforts to prevent certain voters from casting their ballots. Over the years, we’ve seen all sorts of attempts to gain partisan advantage by keeping people away from the polls – from literacy tests and poll taxes, to misinformation campaigns telling people that Election Day has been moved, or that only one adult per household can cast a ballot. Senators Schumer and Cardin recently introduced legislation that would deter and punish such harmful practices. This bill has sparked and helped to advance a critically important dialogue across – and beyond – Capitol Hill.

6. Provisional ballots - In some states and elections, large segments of the electorate are required to cast a provisional ballot instead of a regular ballot on election day, for any of a number of reasons. The Justice Department will be considering whether we need to propose concrete solutions, such as national standards for counting provisional ballots for federal elections, to ensure that voters are not disenfranchised by moves close to an election, by appearing in the wrong polling place or precinct, or by poll worker errors.

7. It’s time to rethink our largely partisan system of state and local election administration. We risk leaving our election processes open to partisan mischief – or to the perception of such mischief. We should have a serious conversation about solutions to this risk, including developing an entirely professionalized and non-partisan system for administering our elections.

What are your ideas about changing the election process?










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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NY City Leaders and Watchdogs Call for a Election System Overhaul

A day after New York City voters encountered waits lasting hours and chaos at many poll sites, elected officials and government watchdog groups agreed that the city’s election process needed major change. But there was little consensus about what to do or how it could be done.

The State Constitution sets the parameters for how all elections in the state are managed, requiring that Republicans and Democrats be equally represented at all levels of election administration. In New York City, the 10 Board of Elections members are recommended by the Democratic and Republican Party committees in each of the five boroughs and then confirmed by the City Council. The parties also play a central role in installing people in staff positions. The board currently has no executive director in part because the county leaders have not been able to agree on a candidate.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a frequent critic of the board, called for eliminating the patronage system by which the commissioners are appointed.

Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a watchdog group, said New York should move to a nonpartisan system.

Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh of Manhattan has sponsored a Constitutional amendment that would allow the Legislature to set qualifications, like experience in administering elections, for members and for essential employees of the elections boards in the state.

The speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, said Wednesday that the state should “seriously examine” allowing early voting to relieve the problem of the long lines on Election Day.

The New York City public advocate, Bill de Blasio, and the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer also endorsed early voting, as well as legislation allowing same-day registration.

In the meantime, the City Council plans to hold a hearing on Dec. 5 to examine the problems that occurred on Election Day, which, in addition to long lines, included jammed or broken ballot scanners, and poll sites that ran out of affidavit ballots for voters displaced by Hurricane Sandy.

Gale Brewer, a city councilwoman from the Upper West Side and the chairwoman of the government operations committee, said people were “definitely disenfranchised” as a result of the long waits at polls Tuesday. She said the chaos had made her worry about how things would go in next year’s local elections, in which New Yorkers would be electing not only a new mayor, but also other citywide officials and many new members of the Council.

We all hope this will be the start of a serious discussion to bring our voting process into the 21st Century and open to all voters.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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