JOIN THE LET NY VOTE COALITION!
The Let NY Vote (LNYV) coalition virtually meets bi-weekly on Wednesdays at 12pm EST. LNYV plans and organizes on several of its legislative priorities through the working groups listed below.
Email letnyvote@gmail.com if you’re interested to join us!
OUR WORKING GROUPS
BOARD OF ELECTIONS REFORM
Sound election administration is central to the health of our democracy. In January 2023, the State Senate re-introduced and passed a package of bills that would bring national best practices in election administration to New York’s boards of elections (BOEs). These policies can improve voter service and reinforce public confidence in our elections at a time when we’re seeing increased threats against election workers working on democracy’s front lines.
In June 2023, the Legislature passed one bill from the 2023 package – S587 (Comrie)/A268 (Walker) – which strengthens training requirements for poll workers. Now that Governor Hochul has signed that bill into law, we are calling on lawmakers to pass the remaining bills in the package so our state can more equitably serve all eligible voters across the state.
This working group focuses on achieving a voter-centric, accountable, transparent, professional, and well-resourced election administration that is essential to building the strong multiracial, multiethnic democracy that New Yorkers deserve.
YOUTH
Our youth working group works to expand the right to vote to all young people and engage young people in our electoral process.
In 2022, the fight for polling sites on college campuses was victorious thanks in part to our activists.
Now, the youth working group is working to bring a novel Student Voter Empowerment Act to our state.
Students on college campuses seldom receive information about voter registration, election deadlines, polling locations, upcoming elections, and more. A new Student Voter Empowerment Act would ensure that every student has (in advance) the information needed to create a plan to vote.
Free the vote new york
This working group focuses on protecting and expanding modern access to the right to vote for justice-involved citizens.
That includes developing and advancing legislation to provide a modern voting program for eligible New Yorkers in jails who have not lost the right to vote, improving voter registration, and ballot access for detained or confined citizens across the state.
The working group also seeks to improve civic education for incarcerated New Yorkers and raise awareness about eligibility criteria and key deadlines. Finally, the working group supports the Coalition's efforts to bring an end to felony disenfranchisement and restore full voting rights to incarcerated citizens.
EVEN-NUMBERED YEAR local ELECTIONS
Local governments have a profound impact on our day-to-day lives, but fewer and fewer New Yorkers come out to vote for their local elected officials. Voter turnout for local elections is so low because they are held in odd-numbered, “off-cycle” election years, separate from high-profile federal or statewide races. Odd-year elections result in racial and age-based disparities: turnout skews older, whiter, and wealthier than the overall population, while increasing voter fatigue that draw little public or media attention.
Our working group believes moving local elections to even-numbered years, specifically city elections, can drastically increase voter turnout, up and down the ballot – especially for young voters and communities of color, while allowing election officials to recoup and adequately prepare for the next election.
Email letnyvote@gmail.com to join any one of the working groups!
WORKING GROUP updates & NEWS
BOARD OF ELECTIONS MEMO OF SUPPORT
DEMOCRACY DURING DETENTION ACT INFOGRAPHIC
Opinion: Facilitating democracy during detention
People detained in Ulster County Jail fill out voter registration forms and absentee ballots. Ulster County Board of Elections
by Ashley Torres and John Quigley - August 26, 2024
During the November 2023 general election, we – the two Ulster County elections commissioners – piloted a program with our local jail to ensure that citizens who have been detained and still have the right to vote can exercise that right. Now, we are urging bipartisan election commissioners around the state to do the same and for Albany to pass legislation formalizing our program.
In New York, individuals lose their right to vote while serving a sentence for a felony conviction. Citizens detained before trial or serving time for a misdemeanor can still vote, but they have only one way to do so: by applying for, receiving, filling out and returning an absentee ballot on time.
Read the rest of the City and State New York Op-Ed here.