Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
TESTIMONY
Testimony by Marianne Birch, Member of the Public, advocating for open primaries and voter empowerment
1:28:00
·
157 sec
Marianne Birch, a community organizer with decades of experience advocating for independent voters, argues that hyper-partisanship has created a dysfunctional electoral system and that political parties hinder democracy.
She contends that New York City, having adopted reforms like RCV and public financing, should take the next step by opening its primaries.
Birch asserts that forcing voters to join a party to participate in taxpayer-funded elections is unjust, rejects the idea that party leadership should pick candidates, and expresses confidence in voters' ability to make informed choices without party labels.
Marianne Birch
1:28:00
Thank you, mister chairman and commissioners, for the opportunity to testify.
1:28:08
I'm a longtime resident of New York City, a lifetime in New York City.
1:28:16
And I became politically active in 1968.
1:28:20
I was 12.
1:28:22
So I've been very engaged in politics for a long time.
1:28:26
And I've been a community organizer on behalf of independent voters for forty years.
1:28:32
And I worked on the issue of opening the primaries during mayor Bloomberg's tenure.
1:28:40
I think we can all agree that the hyper partisanship has created a dysfunctional electoral system, the ecosystem, if you will.
1:28:53
New York City, to our great credit, has recently adopted ranked choice voting.
1:28:59
We adopted term limits and a system of public campaign financing.
1:29:04
I think it's time we take the next step and open our primaries.
1:29:11
Virginia has nonpartisan voter registration.
1:29:16
I don't even understand why we have to enroll in a political party.
1:29:23
I think the parties are in the way of our democracy.
1:29:29
There are 1,100,000 New Yorkers who are not registered in a party and do not want to.
1:29:39
Our primaries are taxpayer funded.
1:29:42
I pay taxes for the primaries, and I cannot vote.
1:29:51
It's a bit outrageous.
1:29:55
No New Yorker should be forced to join a political party in order to vote in our often definitive primaries.
1:30:07
Furthermore, I don't think, contrary to what we heard tonight, that the political party leadership should be picking our candidates.
1:30:20
I think we should, and I think voters are a lot smarter than we have been referred to this evening.
1:30:32
Let all voters vote.
1:30:35
I thank you so much.