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Comparison of current and past spending on ranked choice voting education
3:38:12
·
104 sec
Council Member Lincoln Restler compares the current spending on ranked choice voting education with past expenditures, highlighting a significant reduction in overall spending.
- Current CFB spending on ranked choice voting education is $3.2 million
- In 2021, the mayor's office reportedly allocated $15 million for ranked choice voting education
- There is uncertainty about how much of the $15 million was actually spent in 2021
- Restler expresses concern about the dramatic reduction in spending on voter education for ranked choice voting
- The discussion reveals that no other city agencies are currently contributing to ranked choice voting education efforts
Lincoln Restler
3:38:12
And just to build off some of my colleagues' questions about ranked choice voting education, appreciate $3,200,000 in funding around that and the importance of it, but back in 2021 the mayor's office made a significant expenditure around RCV I believe to the tune of $15,000,000.
3:38:28
Is that right?
3:38:31
What does that mean?
3:38:41
Do you have reason to think they didn't spend the money?
3:39:02
We can go back and and check how much the spend how much they effectively spend down, but under any circumstances they spent a lot of money.
3:39:09
Maybe they didn't spend all 15,000,000, but they spent a significant portion of it to educate voters around ranked choice voting.
3:39:15
There's no similar spending happening this cycle.
3:39:18
Is that right?
3:39:22
No.
3:39:22
I understand that.
3:39:23
I'm asking there's no
3:39:25
There's no spending coming from any other city agencies to educate voters around RCV.
3:39:31
So the full extent of the voter education is here.
3:39:34
So I just mean to say we've seen a dramatic reduction in spending on the part of the City Of New York to educate voters around this process despite this only being the second time really that this that this model of voting is being utilized.
3:39:47
I just I just wanna underscore the the concerns that have been articulated by colleagues that I I share.
3:39:53
Okay.
3:39:55
Couple questions about hiring.
Amanda Melillo
3:38:29
That is what they said.
3:38:32
I mean there was a press release that they were going to spend 15,500,000.0 but I am not I don't know how much they actually spent.
3:38:43
I would say given my experience in government it's very hard to spend that amount of money on that time frame.
3:38:49
Okay.
3:38:50
Particularly around advertising when you have to book far in advance.
3:38:54
It's hard to inject millions of dollars with weeks before an election because other people have already bought up all the ad space.
3:39:19
What we are spending this cycle is 3,200,000.0.
3:39:24
Not from the mayor's office.