Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
Q&A
Inquiry into statistical evidence for increased voter inclusivity with even-year elections
0:41:54
·
3 min
Commissioner Valerie White requests specific data from Bella Wang of the League of Women Voters regarding increased voter inclusivity (racial, youth, renters) from even-year elections.
Wang cites California research on school board elections showing significant increases in Latino, Asian, and younger voter shares, and notes similar turnout boosts in NYC's minority-majority districts during even years.
White also asks that the League's upcoming study on primary systems include statistics on diverse participation.
Valerie White
0:41:54
Ms.
0:41:55
Wang, right?
0:41:56
Well, sorry.
0:41:58
You thank you for your explanation in response to chair Bjorie's question about the even year and the anecdotal evidence for more inclusivity, not just racial and gender, but renters versus homeowners.
0:42:17
It I don't know.
0:42:18
And if this was in your prior testimony, forgive me.
0:42:21
I don't know if you have any specific, statistics on that that could be helpful in, you know, us looking at this.
0:42:30
You also mentioned that you're in the process of doing a, you know, nonaffiliate, open primary, whatever the term is, or looking at all the other options.
0:42:42
When you do that analysis, if you can also include any statistics as it relates to, more diversity and and participation, that would be helpful as well.
Bella Wang
0:42:54
Yeah.
0:42:54
Absolutely.
0:42:55
So I think, we, you know, we did some research, and we spoke to, I forgot her name, unfortunately.
0:43:01
I'm gonna send that to you afterwards.
0:43:03
But there is a, researcher at Berkeley who was looking at school board election timing, in California because, they've got a useful kind of research position because they have they don't regulate whether school boards happen even in odd years.
0:43:17
And, there's been a fair amount of movement in California among those school boards where some localities have been switching.
0:43:23
Right?
0:43:24
So there's some ability to actually track that, in a way that's reasonably tractable with the data and therefore being less anecdotal.
0:43:32
What they found particularly was that the Latino share of voters increases by about 6% during even years.
0:43:38
Asian share increases by a couple of percentage points.
0:43:41
The share of younger Americans almost doubled in presidential years, and there's a modest increase in renters.
0:43:46
This particular effect also was noted in that paper to increase particularly in regions with a very diverse population, which is pretty much what you see here.
0:43:56
So for example, we found in New York City when we were looking at just the numbers, districts that have over 90% minority populations have turnout increases of an average of 232% in even year elections compared to odd years.
0:44:09
And so yeah.
0:44:12
You know, in in recent presidential cycle, that means a turnout among young younger voters ends up being something like 60%.
0:44:20
Obviously, it's just way, way huger than it is for just overall turnout for odd years.
0:44:27
And again, because the increase is so much larger for those particular populations, you see them just naturally having a larger vote share.
Richard Buery
0:44:35
Thank you.
0:44:36
And you said that research is detailed in your written testimony?
0:44:39
Yes.
Bella Wang
0:44:40
And I can email, you all the name of the.
Richard Buery
0:44:42
Thank you.
0:44:43
Thank you
Valerie White
0:44:43
very much.
0:44:43
Again, when you look at the open primary means, non Oh, yes.
0:44:48
Primary, semi open, whatever it is that we're looking at.
0:44:51
Hopefully, all of them knew so they include any Yes.
Bella Wang
0:44:54
We're looking at it right now.
0:44:56
Good.
0:44:56
Yeah.
0:44:57
Well, we're happy to circle back.
0:44:58
I think we have a we have a sort of grassroots concurrent process that we do, so it's currently going through our membership right
Valerie White
0:45:04
Thank you.
Richard Buery
0:45:05
Thank you.