Why New York Voters Need the Voter Empowerment Act

Voters across New York are getting excited for the presidential primary on April 19, and for good reason: for the first time in nearly three decades, primary voters in New York will play a pivotal role in selecting who the major party candidates will be in November.

As New Yorkers prepare to vote, too many are expressing frustration with New York’s outdated election system. The Board of Elections reports that dozens of voters have been calling every day to complain that their party affiliation is incorrect, or that their names have been dropped from the voting rolls.

Many of these problems could be avoided in future elections if state lawmakers were to adopt the Voter Empowerment Act (A5972/S2538A) -- one of the three bills included in the Vote Better NY campaign. Under the current system, the vast majority of voters in New York State use pen and paper to register or update their registration when they move. Board of Elections staff in each county must manually enter the forms. It is easy to imagine the errors that result from this antiquated process: misspelled names, incorrect addresses, mistaken party affiliations.

The Voter Empowerment Act (VEA) would help solve this problem by requiring the state Board of Elections to create an online voter registration system through its own website. This would allow voters more control over their own voter registration records, allowing them to immediately and accurately update their registration information when they move; or change their party affiliation. Online registration eliminates the need for BOE staff to manually enter addresses, names and other information, saving government resources and reducing the possibility of data-entry errors.

The VEA would also require government agencies to automatically register any eligible voter (who consents to being registered) by transmitting the voter’s information to the state Board of Elections. Public assistance agencies, municipal housing authorities, CUNY, and SUNY, would be designated as voter registration agencies with custodial responsibility for electronic signatures in order to complete a voter’s registration.

The VEA further empowers voters in New York by enacting the following provisions:

·         Allowing voters to change their party enrollment status. New York is the only state that doesn’t allow voters to change party enrollment in the year of an election. The VEA would allow voters to change their party enrollment 10 days before the next primary, special or general election. This would give unaffiliated voters the opportunity to participate in high-profile elections, like the forthcoming Presidential primaries.

·         Pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds. Young New Yorkers would become active voters automatically when they turn 18!

·         Failsafe protections for voters who believe they should be registered. The VEA would allow the Board of Elections to create a process where voters who registered with one of the voter registration agencies could cast a regular ballot even if they do not appear on the rolls.

These commonsense solutions would bring our voter registration system into the 21^st century, and help roughly 1.7 million eligible, but unregistered, New Yorkers get onto the rolls. It’s time for New York to enact this sensible solution. Join our effort to modernize elections in New York: sign the Vote Better NY petition today!