Q&A
Strategies for voter education with consolidated elections
3:01:01
·
4 min
Panelists discuss various strategies for voter education in the context of consolidated elections. They address concerns about voter fatigue and information overload, and propose solutions.
- Susan Lerner compares California's long ballots to New York's frequent elections
- Emphasizes the importance of the voter guide in addressing election fatigue
- Ben Weinberg suggests strengthening existing mechanisms for voter education
- Marina Pino argues that voter knowledge could potentially increase with consolidated elections
Susan Lerner
3:01:01
I wanna talk about my experience with my long exile in California, you know, where the ballots were extremely long, and it contrasted to the experience here in New York, where what we frequently hear from people is, I never know when the election is.
3:01:21
There's an election every other month.
3:01:23
I don't know what's going on here, and it was a surprise to me.
3:01:27
So the consolidation goes towards a whole other problem, which is ballot, which is election fatigue.
3:01:34
So I would suggest that some of the reasons why we see the low turnout is people are just tired of yet another election.
3:01:41
And the antidote is what we already have in our city charter, thank goodness, which is the only one really in the state, and that is the voter guide.
3:01:52
In California, we got a really big voter guide because we had 14 to 16 initiatives, as well as all of the offices.
3:02:01
And but because if we knew when it was coming, people actually engaged with the voter guide.
3:02:07
And I feel that people here don't engage as much with the voter guide because there's just too many elections.
3:02:13
This is just another election.
3:02:15
And they don't really understand the value of the voter guide.
3:02:18
So I would say expansion of the voter guide and an emphasis on the voter guide to look for it, to know it's coming, basic information.
3:02:27
The judges are a whole other thing, and that should be its own hearing.
Lincoln Restler
3:02:32
We can move the judges to odd ears.
Ben Weinberg
3:02:33
Is that it?
Michael Ryan
3:02:34
We can.
3:02:34
No?
Ben Weinberg
3:02:35
Hearing about abolishing some elected offices.
3:02:40
I think you mentioned the, you kind of referenced the answer.
3:02:46
You know, we have so many offices on the ballot today sometimes.
3:02:49
We sometimes have 10 or 12 offices on a primary ballot if you include the, the party offices.
3:02:56
We all get these phone these, phone calls, but that's not the only way that New Yorkers learn how to vote.
3:03:03
They use endorsements lists, they use the voter guide, they use media, they use, a whole host of, they use friends.
3:03:13
They will continue to do the same whether we have so if now we have 10, we might have 15.
3:03:20
So we'll we'll have to face that, and we'll have to strengthen those mechanisms.
3:03:25
Some of them are informal, and some of them are formal that we can spend more money on.
3:03:29
We'll be saving a lot of money, as Marina has mentioned, and we can we can take some of that money to better, to improve our voter education.
3:03:37
But, yes, this is not this is something we thought about a lot.
3:03:40
We have a whole, kind of, chapter in our report about voter voter education.
3:03:45
Again, if we're talking about 2032, we can kinda I think we can we can plan ahead and have a good, we can revise our whole of order education system to fit this new, process.
3:03:58
What encourages me is that we won't be the first ones to do that.
3:04:01
As Susan mentioned, California is kinda the lead on this one, and essentially, the entire state has moved to even years.
3:04:08
And they have, unfortunately for them, way more, way more valid questions than us.
3:04:13
So, you know, if all these cities and all these states have done this, smoothly, and, well, I'm sure that New York can do that as well.
Susan Lerner
3:04:21
You know, and I'd like I I forgot to mention Puerto Rico.
3:04:25
Puerto Rico has one election every 4 years, and it's a party.
3:04:28
They have a huge turnout, because it's a big deal.
3:04:31
They don't have elections every other day.
Marina Pino
3:04:34
And if I I may, just briefly I I think it's equally plausible that voter knowledge can increase, the
Lincoln Restler
3:04:40
button on?
Marina Pino
3:04:41
Oh, is it not working?
Lincoln Restler
3:04:42
Oh, no.
3:04:42
There you go.
3:04:43
That's
Marina Pino
3:04:43
Okay.
3:04:43
Sorry about that.
3:04:44
I think it's equally plausible too that voter knowledge can increase when these local races are shifted to even years.
3:04:49
There will be more attention on these already higher profile races.
3:04:53
That is something else to think about, and it's not just reaching, you know, more voters.
3:04:56
It's also a more representative electorate.
3:04:58
So these are these are voters that are all tuning in at the same time when are there's already a ton of information, a ton of attention being shed on these issues, these local issues can now get the attention that they really deserve.
