AGENCY TESTIMONY
Language access improvements and targeting underrepresented communities
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146 sec
The CFB emphasizes the importance of language access and outreach to underrepresented communities for the 2025 election. The agency identifies priority demographics and geographic areas for targeted voter engagement efforts.
- Five priority demographics identified: young voters, immigrant voters, non-English speakers, voters with disabilities, and those impacted by the criminal legal system
- Specific neighborhoods in the South Bronx, South Brooklyn, Northern Queens, and Central Queens targeted for outreach
- Plans for voter education events, training sessions, and direct voter outreach efforts to reach tens of thousands of New Yorkers
- Implementation of a train-the-trainer model to multiply the reach of educational efforts
Paul Seamus Ryan
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Language access, which means providing information, services, and systems to enable New Yorkers with limited English language proficiency to effectively navigate voting in elections is essential to making that vision a reality in 2025.
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New Yorkers have a right to vote in their language.
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It's our job to ensure they can access that right and build a democracy that is truly inclusive of and designed for all language speakers.
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By dismantling language barriers, we can help ensure that people who speak a language other than English have just as much power at the ballot box as those who speak English comfortably.
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Guided by our charter mandate, the CFP periodically analyzes quantitative and qualitative data to identify communities, both demographic and geographic, that are underrepresented in the electoral process in terms of voter engagement, registration, and participation.
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In our 2022 voter analysis report, we identified 5 priority demographics, voters under the age of 30, immigrant voters, voters who primarily speak a language other than English, voters with disabilities, and voters who have been impacted by the criminal legal system.
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We also identified several priority geographic areas by analyzing US Census data, voter turnout, and the proportions of our identified priority communities that reside within each neighborhood or census district.
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The CFBA has identified neighborhoods in the South Bronx, South Brooklyn, Northern Queens, and Central Queens as communities in need of targeted voter outreach because of the number of recently naturalized residents or residents that speak languages the CFB has not voter education events across the city.
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At these voter education events across the city.
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At these events, we'll educate voters about what RCV is, how RCV works, and help them practice completing an RCV ballot.
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We'll host trainings for 100 of of students, volunteers, and community partners and provide them with the knowledge and the resources to educate their own communities about RCV.
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This is a train the trainer model that multiplies our reach.
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We'll also incorporate RCV educational materials, including sample RCV ballots, into our multilingual direct voter outreach efforts, which will reach tens of thousands of people into our multilingual direct voter outreach efforts, which will reach tens of thousands of New Yorkers in their communities, on the street, at community events, street fairs, parades, festivals, and wherever New Yorkers are gathering.
