Common Cause/NY to Mayor's Office: Thank You for Caring About Voters

NEW YORK, NY (10/16/2018) (readMedia)-- This weekend, 400K New Yorkers -- who are at risk of being inactive on the rolls -- received a letter from the Mayor's Office.

In response, Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause/NY, issued the following statement:

"Over compensating in the age of incompetence and wide-spread voter suppression is common sense and the Mayor's Office is right to err on the of side of more information than less. Common Cause/NY also contacted thousands of voters via text and encouraged them to check their voter registration, regardless of the last time they voted. We're glad to see the city being proactive."

Background:

On Primary Day last month, 27% of registered voters turned out to vote – almost double the numbers from the 2014 primary.

Of the 1.5 million people who voted, too many experienced problems at the polls. Over 125 New Yorkers shared their election day story with Common Cause/NY on or after the primary. 70% of voters reported to Common Cause/NY having trouble on election day:

• Slightly more than half of affected voters reported not being on the voter rolls, despite the fact that many are long time registered voters or had voted within the last year.
• Numerous voters reported issues at their poll site, from missing pollbooks, to broken voting machines and missing signage, or poorly trained staff.
• Dante de Blasio, Mayor de Blasio's son, encountered perennial incompetence from the BOE.
• 19.3% of voters contacting Common Cause/NY reported an unauthorized change in party affiliation from the Democratic party to the Reform party or to unaffiliated status.
• As a follow-up analysis, CCNY reviewed the voter file and found that 338 super-prime Democrats appear to have had their party affiliation changed between the federal and state primary this year.

This year, Let NY Vote, formerly known as Easy Elections NY, formed as a statewide coalition of organizations & grassroots groups fighting to modernize New York's elections. The goal is to pass simple solutions in 2019 to improve our elections and remove barriers to registering and voting for all eligible New Yorkers.

The Let NY Vote coalition is made up of over thirty organizations, nonprofits, and labor unions, including Common Cause/NY, Public Citizen, New York State United Teachers, SEIU 32BJ, RWDSU, CWA District 1, as well as the statewide NAACP and the National Action Network, grassroots organizations, faith groups, civil liberties, reproductive and immigrant rights, criminal justice and re-entry groups, New American, and the LGBTQ community. A full list is available at letnyvote.org.