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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause NY, on Election Administration and Proposed Legislation
2:38:32
·
8 min
Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause NY, provided testimony on various aspects of election administration in New York City and commented on proposed legislation. She highlighted improvements in the NYC Board of Elections' performance while pointing out persistent issues and offering recommendations for enhancing the voting process.
- Emphasized the need for better poll worker training on electioneering rules and improved signage at polling places, including multilingual signs
- Expressed support for bills addressing AI-generated content in elections (Intro 293) and protecting domestic violence survivors' voter registration (Intro 565)
- Stressed the importance of coordinated and uniform voter education efforts for ranked choice voting across city agencies
Susan Lerner
2:38:32
Thank you.
2:38:32
Thanks for, in, allowing public testimony and, including bills for us to comment on.
2:38:41
As you and I have spoken at an earlier hearing, it's great to be able to comment on the specifics of a bill.
2:38:47
And I I would like to say that it would be, helpful in the future if the Council's rules were changed so that we could submit our testimony electronically and not bring 20 copies, especially when in most hearings we're lucky if there are 2 Council members to hear our testimony.
2:39:05
So I'm killing a lot of trees.
2:39:08
But I'd I'd like to focus on, our experience as, the, lead organization for election protection, which is the, largest nonpartisan, election monitoring program in the country.
2:39:22
And we trained and placed over 4 approximately 400 people in New York City and in selected areas outside of New York City.
2:39:31
And, the experience of our volunteers and the information that came in through the 1-866 Our Vote hotline, allows me to talk about specific repetitive problems.
2:39:44
I agree.
2:39:45
New York City's elections have gotten a lot better.
2:39:47
I wanna compliment the Board of Elections on its, efforts to professionalize its staff.
2:39:54
Once again, I wanna shout out the 15 staff members at the board of elections who are now certified election administrators.
2:40:01
2 years of course work.
2:40:03
This is a major, accomplishment and absolutely the direction we wanna see the board go in.
2:40:10
And so the election was much smoother.
2:40:12
We did not see a huge number of long lines, but there are certain problems that are coming up repeatedly.
2:40:20
The first one is the poll workers aren't really clued into the seriousness of electioneering.
2:40:28
In every single cycle where we run election protection, either through the phone or on the field, we receive reports, sometimes it's 1 or 2, but that's 1 or 2 too many, of poll workers who are telling people how to vote, who are literally rejecting ballots.
2:40:44
You filled this out wrong.
2:40:46
You're a Democrat.
2:40:47
You can only vote for Democratic candidates.
2:40:50
This happens every single general election, and then we run into problems.
2:40:55
Sometimes there are poll workers themselves who are electioneering, or they aren't enforcing the electioneering rules.
2:41:01
So one of our recommendations is that in the training, the process of protecting the impartiality of the election procedures by controlling electioneering should be reemphasized.
2:41:15
And particularly, the politically named poll workers have to understand that it is not their job to tell people how to vote.
2:41:24
So that's an issue that comes up repeatedly.
2:41:28
This year, we saw a bit more of, but we generally see issues regarding signage.
2:41:33
And one of our recommendations to the board is to redesign the signs.
2:41:38
And I suggest that the council might want to, actually think about a legal requirement, because what we're finding is that the signage, particularly outside poll places, is inadequate.
2:41:51
There aren't enough of them.
2:41:53
They aren't big enough.
2:41:54
And going to the question that Councilwoman Hanif brought up, they are often only in English.
2:42:02
And particularly, we found this year in neighborhoods with large numbers of Chinese speakers, they were wandering around trying to find the polling place when the signs were in English and not in Chinese.
2:42:12
So a requirement is that there be bigger, better, more signs, signs not just outside the entrance to the polling place, but throughout the, perimeter of a bill of a large building because people are looking for the door and they're not getting directions.
2:42:29
Again, problems with disability access, unfortunately, and, also, you know, the, fire alarm problem.
2:42:42
And we are supporters of a bill that would extend the polling place opening hours for however long the polling place was closed because of an emergency, either real or threatened.
2:42:56
So I bring that to your attention.
2:42:57
I want to just very briefly mention 2 bills that we strongly support.
2:43:04
We support all of the bills that are before, the committee today, but 2 in particular that I wanted to pull out.
2:43:11
The first one is, the bill, that Council Member Menon has introduced, which I guess is intro 293.
2:43:25
And we think it's a good beginning, but, we wonder why the council member did not include disclosure requirements.
2:43:33
It's one thing to protect the candidates from actual deceptive practices, but it's really voter education that will help the voters be more skeptical in instances where AI is used in a political ad.
2:43:49
So to us, a, necessary amendment here would be to include a disclosure whenever an ad utilizes AI and then allow the voter to determine the trustworthiness of the depiction.
2:44:04
The second thing is that we absolutely support and applaud Council Member Brewer for intro 565.
2:44:13
We think it's way overdue.
2:44:16
You know, we've seen incremental, improvements in protecting that vulnerable population of people who really, should not have their data out available publicly because they have been, the recipients of abuse.
2:44:35
Our one, suggestion is to ensure that the, Campaign Finance Board consult with the Board of Elections when it puts together the guidelines.
2:44:44
It's one thing to have an overall, instructions from the, election law.
2:44:53
But the question is really what information does the board need, what are its procedures to be sure that when community organizations are providing data and having people write letters, that the information the board wants is there and that the guidelines comport with the actual practice, not just the overall, outlines of the election law.
2:45:18
And lastly, I would like to say for ranked choice voting, the city does not actually use all of its modalities of communication to educate voters.
2:45:28
There are a lot of different ways in which the city communicates with its residents.
2:45:34
There are ways to include notifications, website information, and things as simple as tax bills or notifications that go out from different agencies, requiring every single agency to have a connection on its website to have a link to more information about the upcoming elections in RCB and send them to NYC votes.
2:45:59
Send them to the information.
2:46:02
I want to, urge the campaign finance board and all of the city agencies which do voter education to consult now on the information, ensure that the language that is used is uniform and accurate.
2:46:18
We ran into a problem in 2021 where the BOE had chosen one Spanish, translation.
2:46:26
The Campaign Finance Board chose another Spanish translation.
2:46:29
And the advocates had to come in and say, hey, guys, this is confusing to voters.
2:46:34
You're talking about the same thing in different ways.
2:46:36
So we need to have that coordination happening now before the campaign finance board sets up its materials, and then we find out that either communities don't think it's accurate or other agencies are using slightly different terms.
2:46:53
Uniformity is the absolute necessary standard for voter education, and, I believe we can have another, very successful ranked choice voting election in 2025.
2:47:05
Thank you, and thanks for your patience in letting me go over.