Increasing Voter Turnout for the NYC Primary Election, June 27, 2023

The New York City Primary election is Tuesday, June 27, 2023. Like most off-cycle election years, voter turnout will likely be low. What is on the ballot this year, and what needs to be done to increase voter turnout? Our guests are Betsy Gothbaum, Executive Director of the non-profit good government group Citizens Union and former NYC Public Advocate, and and Ben Weinberg, Citizens Union Director of Public Policy. For more, visit citizensunion.org.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina delRio, a weekly conversation about fitness,
health and happenings in our community onone oh six point seven Light FM.
Good morning, and thanks for listeningto Get Connected. The New York City
primary election is Tuesday. Like mostall cycle election years, voter turnout will
likely be low, certainly compared toturnout for gubernatorial and presidential elections. What's

(00:26):
on the ballot and what needs tobe done to increase voter turnout. Our
guests are Betsy Gothbaum, executive directorof Citizens Union and former New York City
public advocate, and Ben Weinberg,citizens Union Director of public Policy. Betsy
and Ben, thank you for beingon the show. Thank you for having
us. You can find out moreat citizens union dot org. Betsy,

(00:46):
we spoke earlier in the year,we spoke about redistricting. Welcome back to
the show. For anyone who's notfamiliar, I wonder if you could give
us a quick overview of what CitizensUnion does. What's your work, well,
what Citizens Union tries to do andI have to aligned DRIs, but
we work hard at it is toget city and state government to reform some

(01:06):
of the issues and voting is rightup there on the top. We want
to get more people to vote,and we know that the city and the
state, but particularly the city needsreforms done to make voter turnout increase because
right now it's pathetic, and forthis particular election, it is really going
to be pathetic. I'm afraid Idon't want it to be. And that's
one of the reasons we're talking toyou. Well, part of the reason,

(01:30):
I think might be what's on theballot. Can you talk a little
bit about what's on the ballot?And I think there's a large number of
uncontested races. There are There area lot of races. There are five
races that we looked at, andBen can go into detail about that about
which they are and why we madethe choice to do those races. And
most people don't know there's an election. They really don't know there's an elections

(01:53):
unless it's very local, unless itis locally publicized, and therefore people kind
of that you say there's an election, I say what because it's not the
same year as the election that mostpeople vote. Ben, you want to
talk a little bit about how thedecision was made. Yeah, I'll mention
the races on the ballots that wehave the entire city councils up for reelection

(02:14):
this year, although about two thirdsof it is actually uncontested in their primary,
so many people won't even have anythingto vote on their ballot because their
local council member is uncontested. Andthere are also a couple of DA races
one in Queens and one in theBronx, and small judicial positions and party

(02:36):
positions. There's something about those localofficials. You know, you think about
mayoral elections to some degree, butcertainly gubernatorial and presidential elections as being very
important. But these races, howdo they impact someone's daily life when you're
talking about district attorney and city government. Well, I think, and I
think it's one of the things thatwe need to keep pounding people with information.

(02:58):
One of the most important jobs inNew York City as a city council
person, because that's a person whoreally makes a decision on things that are
very important to people day to day, for example, the cleansingness of parks.
Having been a parks commissioner, Ican tell you people really do care
a great deal about whether their parksare clean and safe and all of that.

(03:20):
The person who can be most helpful. There is the local city council
person, the city council man orwoman, and garbage pickups, things like
what's the deal on sidewalk cafes,what's the deal on scaffolding? All of
those questions. Your local council personshould be and probably is the most knowledgeable
and can get the most done.So today, Sunday is the final day

(03:45):
of early voting. It's been opensince the seventeenth. Is there any idea
of how that's been going so farand how much does early voting seem to
help increase participation? What can bedone to improve early voting. So the
numbers of voters who have gone throughthe different early voting days are not that
high. As we said, thisis kind of expected to be a low

(04:05):
turnout election on election day on earlyvoting, through an absentee ballot, in
all means of voting. But wehave early voting because it is not that
easy for people to get to theballot on the Tuesday of election day,
right. People have multiple jobs,or they have business schedules, or they're
sometimes they're out of town. Soearly voting, even in years where we

(04:29):
see not that big amount of peopleuse it. Early voting is really there
to help those that cannot make iton the ballots on the Tuesday. And
to your question of how we canimprove early voting, you know, New
York City, for example, isthe only jurisdiction in New York State that
does not allow for what's called votingcenters, Meaning in every other county around

(04:54):
the state, a voter can goto any kind of early voting location in
their county and vote the But theNew York City, each voder is assigned
one early voting location and that's theonly place where they can vote. And
sometimes the locations are not that closeto their hushold or their work. Many
people would like to you know,let's say they commute to Manhattan. They

(05:15):
would actually just kind of finish theirday in Manhattan and vote there and go
back home. So that's one ofthe ways where we can significantly improve early
voting. One thing that can reallyimprove voting in general and early voting is
give people a day off and theday that they're going to vote or that
they can vote. I think probablyseven people when the city would kill me
for this, But to me,if you had a day off, well

(05:35):
guess what more people would vote,And to me, that's so obvious.
I know it costs the city somemoney and that's always a problem, but
then I do think it's a wayto answer the problem with low voter a
journeys. Our guests are Betsy Gothbaum, executive director of Citizens Union and former
New York City public advocate, andBen Weinberg, citizens Union director of public

(05:57):
Policy. You're listening to get connectedon one or six point seven light FM.
I Mina del Rio. You canfind out more about citizens Union at
citizens union dot org. And thenjust to go back to what we were
talking about low turnout, could youactually give some numbers comparing say a city
council typical general city council race toturnout for mayoral and presidential that sort of
thing. Yeah, So what wesee is that we see a significant difference

(06:18):
in elections to municipal government positions,so the city council, of board,
president, the mayor and these.In the last election we had, the
turnout was twenty three percent for localgovernment. And in fact, what we
see is that for since about themid nineties, those vorder turnout trends have

(06:40):
been dropping every cycle. We havefewer vorders than we had in the previous
election for mayor. And that doesn'tmatter if the if it's an open seat,
if it's a very hockey contestant,or if it's in a real re
election campaign. Just the voter turnoutrates for mayoral and city council and local
positions are dropping recycle. In comparison, if we look at the voter turnout

(07:03):
for a presidential race, those remainaround sixty percent, sixty one, sixty
two, fifty nine. They're they'repretty steady for a few decades now.
The voter turnout rates for a gubernatorialelection, which is also a mid term
election, right, that fluctuates dependingon how competitive the race is or you

(07:26):
know, the interest around who willtake the House. So you know,
in the last two Environmentori elections wehad forty eight percent thirty five percent turnout
SOS, significantly higher in what wesee on the local level, but less
than what we see at the presidentiallevel. You did just say that at
the local level, it doesn't seemto matter whether the race is contested or
uncontested. But I do wonder doeslow voter turnout contribute to uncontested races in

(07:50):
the first place, right, thisincumbent is never going to leave. My
vote doesn't matter, so I'm notgoing to you know, on both sides
of it, it seems like itmight feed the other. Interestingly, we
have a very high rate of incumbencyat a state level, so for example,
your assembly member or your state senatoroften remains there for decades and remains

(08:11):
uncontested, and the elections are eithervery uncompetitive or uncontested. But those races
which happen at the same time whereyou we elect the governor or president,
those elections remain pretty high in termsof turnouts even though they are non competitive.
The city council elections are more competitivebecause we have term limits for city

(08:33):
council and we have a very robustcampaign finance system that kind of allows people
to run and really encourages a morecompetitive environment. Unfortunately, the turnout in
those races, which are more competitive, remains lower than the kind of uncompetitive
assembly races. So that gets youto think kind of what is leading the
low turnout here and whether it isnot a question of competitiveness, but the

(08:56):
question of the year where they areheld at why do we have these elections
And off your cycles anyway, ifit leads to low turnout. Well,
it's in the constitution of the Stateof New York. You better go back
and ask what happened in the ninetyearly nineteenth century. I mean, that's
what's so crazy about it all.And you would maybe the next question is,

(09:16):
well, isn't there some way wecan get around that? Ben,
you answered that question to me thismorning, but I'll let you answer it
again. Better at it than Iam. I still don't get it.
I get it, but I don'tget it. If you know what I
mean. Yeah, that's right.If we want to make that change,
we have to amend the New YorkState Constitution. I will say that,
as Betty mentioned, this isn't astate constitution for a hundred and something years

(09:39):
now. It has been placed therein the late nineteenth century, after New
York City has switched between these oncycle and off cycle elections for four times
actually during those years, and everytime it was meant to benefit one party,
you know, the Whigs or theirRepublicans or Tammany Hall or Reformers.

(10:00):
It got placed in the constitution eighteenninety four, and the idea was really
to reduce the power of Tammany Halland machine politics at that time, he
didn't succeed. In fact, theopposite has happened, because you know,
the mobilized and organized kind of tammanyand machine politics are able to bring out
more people to vote in lower andelections of their power relatively to the lecture

(10:26):
is stronger. But we're stuck withthis. One hundred and something years later.
Well, on June seventh, theCity Council had a hearing on how
to improve voter turnout for these elections. They had a resolution calling on the
legislature to pass and voters to approvean amendment to the constitution. Where is
that standing? How far did thatyet? So we're glad the council is
taking the lead on this issue.Council Member Sandra on which is the chair

(10:50):
of the Governmental Operations coming, sheintroduced the resolution that you mentioned, and
there was a very interesting hearing onthe kind of various we could we could
do too in Chris turnout for amunicipal election, and it's pretty rare.
The City Council dedicates an entire hearingnot only for voter turnout, but voter

(11:11):
turnout in municipal election, which isits own kind of separate story. So
the hearing was very interesting, reheardsfrom other good government groups supporting this,
We heard from academics who are supportin this. And on the same week,
in fact, the legislator, thenew legislator, passed a bill.
This was one of the last billsthey passed in this legislative session. They

(11:35):
passed a bill to move local electionsoutside of New York City two even numbered
year elections, So very similar towhat we were thinking to do in the
New York City level and other citiesin New York State, but doing it
for county elections, county legislators,county executives, and the like. To
be clear, there have been somecities that have made the switch, Phoenix,

(11:58):
Austin, El Paso, and Baltimore, or how much of a difference
has that made. This has madea substantial dramatic increase in turnout. In
fact, every city in every jurisdictionthat has made that these changes saw dramatic
increasing turnout. So Los Angeles,you know that the second largest city in
the United States, held their firston cycle even year local election just last

(12:22):
year, and they nearly doubled theirturnout from to twenty four percent to forty
five percent in just one election.And we know of even greater changes that
have happened. In Baltimore they movedfrom thirteen percent to sixty percent right and
Phoenix they moved from twenty one percentto seventy seven percent turnouts. So these

(12:43):
are kind of massive, massive,massive numbers of new vorders that come in
and are able to shape their citygovernment. You know one thing I didn't
I think we should also emphasize is, you know, people they don't really
have the time or the inclination orthe energy, or maybe they aren't that
interested in the issues. Maybe theydon't really understand what the legislators do,

(13:07):
which is why I say we've gotto keep emphasizing how important the city council
is. But maybe they just don'tand therefore it's much easier not to bother
to go out and vote. Andwe're sure the numbers show that by putting
it all on the same day,you'll get more people voting. I do
think we have to continue doing whatI said, We have to emphasize how

(13:28):
important voting is on those particular legislatorsand what partnerships are. Who's responsible for
getting that word out? Well,I think we all are and I think
all the good government groups do try. But I think that the mayors should
the mayor should be talking about it, that governors should be talking Everybody who
gets on the media that people listento should be talking about it. I

(13:50):
think the local community organizations can bedoing it, should be doing it.
I think many of them are.I think everybody should just work together to
try to do several things that willmake this happen, and we need what
the other thing we need to dois to really get the public involved and
interested in changing it. Just toround out this conversation, so Citizens Union

(14:11):
is focused on New York collections,but you see what's trending in other parts
of the country where voting access isactually being restricted. How do you make
the argument that participation and increasing voterturnout isn't everyone's interests regardless of party.
You know, one of the greatthings that we have in this country allegedly
is for people to be able tovote for whom they want and what they
want. What are the things thatthey want and if they don't vote,

(14:33):
they deserve what they get. Andso we need to really emphasize looking at
some of the things that have happenedin other states and other cities. I
don't want to be negative here becausewhat I'd rather do is sort of say,
please, everybody understand how important itis to you personally, to you,
if you want to get something done, you've got to get it done

(14:54):
through your local elections. And Ithink that's the message we've got to keep
pounding. I don't think we shouldbe really negative about what's happened in states
where the voting is being somewhat taken. It's being restricted. The voting is
being restricted in some states, andpeople should be terrified of that. Voting
in New York City is on Tuesday. You can find out more about the

(15:15):
issues at citizens union dot org.Our guests are Betsy Gothbaum and Ben Weinberg
of Citizens Union. Thank you forbeing on Get Connected, Thank you for
doing this, and we'll just keepkeep doing it. Nina. This has
been Get Connected with Nina del Rioon one oh six point seven LIGHTFM.
The views and opinions of our guestsdo not necessarily reflect the views of the

(15:37):
station. If you missed any partof our show or want to share it,
visit our website for downloads and podcastsat one six seven LIGHTFM. Dot
com, Thanks for listening,