Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
TESTIMONY
Testimony by Bella Wang, Representative from League of Women Voters of New York City, on benefits of even-year elections and voter accessibility
0:32:08
·
3 min
Bella Wang, representing the League of Women Voters of New York City, testifies in support of moving local elections to even-numbered years.
She argues this change would promote a more inclusive and representative electorate, benefiting communities of color, young voters, and potentially renters.
Wang also highlights that even-year elections would ensure compliance with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), enhance voter education efforts, and urges the commission to clearly phrase any related ballot question for accessibility.
Bella Wang
0:32:08
Thank you.
0:32:09
My name is Bella Wong.
0:32:11
I'm with the Legal and Voters of the city of New York.
0:32:14
I just want to say that I appreciate the opportunity from all of the commissioners here today to just submit testimony on your preliminary report, which you found very interesting.
0:32:22
So as a multi issue nonpartisan political organization of over a century, The League of Women Voters of New York City encourages informed and active citizen participation in government and it works to increase understanding of major policy issues and influences public policy through advocacy and education.
0:32:39
I've been volunteering here for almost a decade at this point, which is very wild.
0:32:43
So we read your preliminary report with interest.
0:32:47
We submitted written testimony in the last round around ranked choice voting and around even your elections.
0:32:53
Given the focus in the preliminary report on even your elections, I just wanted to dig into a few things that I think people have testified pretty thoroughly around most of the usual advantages, but we wanted to highlight a few things around accessibility and the access for people in the city.
0:33:10
So people even this evening have already talked about the turnout problem in New York City and the effect on local election or on our local elections from moving Vermont even years as well as the cost savings.
0:33:23
But a few things we would like to highlight.
0:33:24
First of all, we believe that it will generally promote a more inclusive and representative electorates, benefiting communities of color, young voters, as well as there's actually some evidence from the research that it might give more boy voice to renters as well as homeowners, which is definitely a balance of voice and representation that's very active in the city.
0:33:46
We're obviously very diverse as well.
0:33:48
Secondly, from an accessibility standpoint, moving the election timing would ensure compliance with HAVA, the Help America Vote Act, which is a federal law on ballot access.
0:33:59
It guarantees certain ballot access protections to voters in federal elections, which then extends to any concurrent elections that are happening at state and local level.
0:34:06
That means that these protections are not guaranteed in nonfederal elections.
0:34:10
So putting our local elections in even years would put it under the HAVA umbrella, which I think as we've seen with political developments lately, it's very important to protect things with existing federal laws whenever we can.
0:34:25
Also, I think a thing that we are interested in is ensuring that voter education is covered.
0:34:29
Voters experience election fatigue with constant elections, and we do think it's important when voters are really tapped in during even years to take advantage of time to educate on local as well as federal and state level issues.
0:34:42
Lastly, I want to note a little bit around the how to actually get this as a ballot question.
0:34:49
Again, from an accessibility standpoint, we realize as people have mentioned that the necessity of lining up the local and states elections makes us a little bit tricky.
0:35:00
We are really dedicated to voter education and making sure that should this ballot item be up, that we're in support and really clear to our communities around, essentially, this is a part of the necessary but not complete part of the the puzzle.
0:35:16
And we really urge the commission when you're thinking about how to phrase it to make sure that you phrase it in a way that's very, very clear for voters.
0:35:23
Voters are pretty smart on average.
0:35:24
You know, we feel confident in them, but we wanna make sure there aren't excessive double negatives, in the wording.
0:35:29
So that's very clear.
0:35:30
And lastly, I'll just note, as a side note, we are currently studying the issue of nonpartisan primaries, so we look forward to coming back with
Michelle Jackson
0:35:37
our conclusion later in the year.
0:35:38
Thank you.