in New York, voters are heading to the polls today for both the Democratic and Republican primary in one of the most closely watched races of the election. In the Republican race, Donald Trump has a commanding lead in the polls. On the Democratic side, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has touted his Brooklyn roots and is hoping to pull a major upset in New York, keeping his streak of victories alive. He’s won eight of the last nine contests. But Hillary Clinton, who served eight years as a senator from New York, has remained in the lead in every opinion poll.
hat’s Senator Sanders speaking last week in front of 27,000 people in New York’s Washington Square Park. While Sanders has held a series of massive rallies in New York, many of his supporters can’t vote today in the state’s closed primary. Voting rights activists say New York has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country. The state has no early voting, no Election Day registration, and excuse-only absentee balloting. The voter registration deadline for the primary closed 25 days ago, before any candidate had even campaigned in New York. Meanwhile, independent or unaffiliated voters had to change their party registrations back in October—over 190 days ago, before any debate or any primary or caucus—to vote in today’s closed Democratic or Republican primaries. This will reportedly disenfranchise nearly 30 percent of New Yorkers. Donald Trump’s own children did not manage to change their party registrations from independent to Republican in time to vote for their father.
Meanwhile, WNYC is reporting the number of registered Democrats in Brooklyn dropped by 60,000 since November, and there’s no clear reason why. During that same period, most counties in New York saw an increase in registered Democrats. This comes as a group of New Yorkers who saw their party affiliations mysteriously switched filed a lawsuit seeking to open New York’s closed primaries so that they can cast a ballot. The lawsuit is asking for an emergency declaratory judgment that would make today’s New York primary open, meaning any registered New York voter could cast a ballot in either party’s primary.
Ari Berman talking:
So, nearly a third of New Yorkers can’t participate in the primary because they are not registered with the Democratic or Republican Party, and New York has some of the most restrictive voter registration laws in the country, as you mentioned. People had to change their party affiliations back in October, when no one was paying attention to the New York primary. People had to register to vote 25 days before the election, before any candidate had campaigned in New York. And beyond that, New York has some of the worst voting laws in the country. Unlike 37 states, we don’t have early voting. Unlike 15 states, we don’t have Election Day registration. Our Constitution doesn’t even allow Election Day registration, because you have to register no later than 10 days before an election. We have excuse-only absentee ballots, meaning you have to prove you’re out of town and—or you to prove you have a disability to get an absentee ballot.
I think it’s sad that we are the fourth bluest state in the country but have some of the worst voting laws. We rank below Texas, below North Carolina, behind all of these states with new voting restrictions, in terms of voter turnout. We ranked 44th in voter turnout in 2012. We got a D-minus from the Center for American Progress on accessibility to the ballot. So, regardless of which candidate you’re for, regardless of whether you’re for open or closed primaries, we should be for making it much easier to vote in New York.
Both parties want to protect the status quo in New York, Amy. Democrats, by and large, are happy with the system. Republicans, by and large, are happy with the system. They just want their slice of the pie, and they what to protect it. Incumbents who are in power want to stay that way. So, unlike states like Oregon and California, which have embraced reform, passing policies like automatic voter registration and Election Day registration, New York has not followed this trend for progressive reform. And I think that’s really unfortunate. The one good thing that could come out of this primary, with the Trump kids not being able to register, with so many Bernie supporters not being able to register, is that finally people are paying attention to just how bad New York’s voting laws really are, how many people are shut out of the democratic process here.
“Hundreds of New York state voters to file suit calling the closed primary ‘a threat to our democratic system’ after claiming their party affiliation mysteriously changed.” The article quotes Joanna Viscuso, a 19-year-old from Long Island. She said she registered to vote as a Democrat during her college orientation at Adelphi University in 2014. Then, she noticed last week that now her voter registration online says she’s not affiliated with a party. Viscuso reportedly called the Nassau Board of Elections, and they told her that she had filled out a form in September to change her party affiliation, and sent it in October. But she claims she never did that. She says she’s a first-time voter. She told the New York Daily News, “As soon as I noticed it was changed I was infuriated, and then when they said there was nothing I could do I was still infuriated. All of a sudden we can’t vote? That’s ridiculous!” she said.
It’s a very mysterious situation. We’ve seen similar things happen in other states. In Arizona, where there were five-hour lines at the polls because they reduced so many polling places, a lot of people also had their voter registration switched without them knowing. So people waited in five-hour lines and still weren’t able to cast a ballot, because they were not registered. In New York, what these voters should do is cast a provisional ballot and try to have that ballot counted after the election. There is going to be a lawsuit this morning to try to open up New York’s primary. Regardless of whether or not that succeeds, people should go to the polls. They should vote today. They should cast a provisional ballot and try to get that counted afterwards.
A WNYC analysis of New York state voter enrollment statistics found that the number of active registered Democrats dropped there [in Brooklyn] by 63,558 voters between November 2015 and now, April 2016. That translates into a 7 percent drop in registered Democrats in the borough. According to the NPR station in New York, WNYC, no other borough in New York City nor county in the rest of the state saw such a significant decline in active registered Democrats. In fact, only seven of the state’s 62 counties saw a drop in the number of Democrats. Everywhere else saw the numbers increase.
What the Board of Elections in Brooklyn said is that they had changed the number of voters from active to inactive, and that’s why there was such a big drop-off. But 60,000 people are a lot of voters to shift from active to inactive. So, it’s very possible that some active voters are going to be wrongly purged from the polls, and some people are going to show up to vote in Brooklyn, think they’re registered, think they’re active, and not be on the voting rolls. We have seen this in many other states, in Florida in 2000, in Ohio in 2004.
You become inactive by not voting in the past few elections. That’s how you become inactive. But sometimes people don’t vote for whatever reason and want to vote now. Other times, people are wrongly labeled inactive and wrongly purged from the voting rolls. So, we don’t know enough to say what happened here, but it’s disturbing that some people may have been put on inactive status if they are not in fact inactive.
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Ari Berman
senior contributing writer for The Nation, where he covers voting rights. His book is titled Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. Berman’s recent piece for The Nation is called “27 Percent of New York’s Registered Voters Won’t Be Able to Vote in the State’s Primary.”
— source democracynow.org
Chaos at Polling Sites, Broken Scanners & Whole Blocks Purged from Voter Rolls
voting in New York City was marked by considerable chaos, particularly in Brooklyn, as tens of thousands of voters found their names had been removed from the rolls or that they were unable to vote at their polling station. The New York City Elections Board has confirmed that more than 125,000 Brooklyn voters had been removed from the rolls since November of 2015. There were also reports that polling staffs were unable to operate voting machines, gave out conflicting information and erroneously directed voters to alternate sites. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a statement Tuesday decrying the disenfranchisement, writing, “It has been reported to us from voters and voting rights monitors that the [voting] lists in Brooklyn contain numerous errors, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters from the voting lists.”
New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer said his office had received reports of polling stations that failed to open on time and poll workers who were unable to tell voters when they would be operational. Stringer ordered an audit of New York’s election authorities, citing deep concern over widespread reports of poll site problems and irregularities.
Kristen Clarke talking:
this was far from a smooth election. Through our Election Protection effort, we operate a hotline, 866-OUR-VOTE, where we field complaints from voters across the state, across the country, during elections. We heard from over 900 voters across the state who reported issues that range from, you know, poll sites that opened late, arrival to poll sites where they were directing voters elsewhere because of technical problems. We heard from voters who have been longtime affiliated with one party, but were told that they were ineligible to participate in the party primary yesterday. It’s clear that there were breaks in the system and that more work needs to be done to ensure that we have a smooth process that allows every eligible voter to cast a ballot.
New York is consistently at the bottom of the list when it comes to turnout and participation. When you look at election reforms that exist in other states, like same-day registration, preregistration opportunities for 16- and 17-year-olds, the ability to cast absentee ballots if you wish, none of those rules exist in New York. I’m really pleased that the comptroller has expressed an interest in shining a light on the New York City Board of Elections, but we’ve got to remember that that’s a band-aid solution. What we need is real reform out of Albany. We need lawmakers to finally follow through on election reforms that have been on the table for a long, long time and that are needed to bring New York into the 21st century. And looking at the numbers of votes cast yesterday, it appears that roughly 33 percent of voters turned out to vote. And that’s abysmal. Even in Maricopa County, where some voters had to endure wait times of up to five hours, you saw a voter turnout rate of about 50 percent. New York is always at the bottom of the list when it comes to turnout, and it’s time for real reform.
we need all of these folks who are expressing angst today, and the comptroller, the mayor, to really direct that energy towards Albany. We need lawmakers in Albany to finally, finally follow through on the need for an election overhaul in New York. We need same-day registration. We need automatic voter registration, so that people can be added to the rolls and their information can be easily updated. We need preregistration opportunities for 16- and 17-year-olds. We need real in-person early voting opportunities. And it is simply shameful that in 2016 we don’t have those kinds of reforms in place in New York. So, all of this angst today, I think, needs to not be directed on issuing reports and shining a spotlight on all of the issues that we already know are there and are broken. It’s time for real reform to come out of Albany, and time for lawmakers to put pen to paper and bring New York into the 21st century.
about half of states around the country have closed primaries or some version of a closed primary. You know, the issue in New York is that we don’t have real notice and communication, clear communication, to voters about the rules and about the deadlines. And often these deadlines are so far out that voters aren’t even focused on the process. Part of this election overhaul needs to be putting more resources into the hands of local boards of elections, so that they can be held accountable and so that they have the ability to give and impart accurate and clear information to voters, so that they know what the rules are and know what the deadlines are.
The New York City Board of Elections, I think that it’s been a fiasco this cycle. They issued notice to about 42,000 new voters, advertising the primary election in the fall. That notice had the wrong date. They issued a second notice that had the correct date of the primary but failed to mention yesterday’s primary happening on April 19th, and then had to do a third notice to voters that made clear the April 19th primary and the primary happening this fall. These kinds of problems are intolerable. They lock people out of the process. If people don’t have accurate and clear information about when to vote and what they need to vote, then we ultimately are disenfranchising voters, and that should not be tolerated. So, part of this election overhaul that we need requires putting more hands into local boards of elections, putting more resources into local boards of elections, so that they have the ability to do their job right.
Mark Weisbrot talking:
you can make a case if this were more of a parliamentary system or you didn’t have this two-party system, where they’re basically like state institutions in the sense that it’s so difficult, almost impossible, for a third party to have a chance. Then, you really should have these primaries as open as possible. And, you know, this country really is what it is today in a large part because of disenfranchisement. If you had voter participation rates like you have in Europe or even some, you know, middle-income developing countries, you’d have a very different electorate. And, of course, the Republican Party knows that. That’s their main strategy for survival, is all about disenfranchisement. You know, they use the control over the state legislatures and the governors to redistrict and to—you know, this big offensive to disenfranchise people. That’s their strategy for going forward. And so, we really need voter reform, I would say, at least as much as campaign finance reform. We’d really see a very different politics in this country if we—if people voted.
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Kristen Clarke
president and executive director of the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The lawyers’ committee leads the Election Protection program, which operates a voter hotline during elections.
Mark Weisbrot
co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and president of Just Foreign Policy. Weisbrot’s new book is called Failed: What the Experts Got Wrong About the Global Economy.
— source democracynow.org