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TESTIMONY
Testimony by John Kaehny, Executive Director of Reinvent Albany, on election reforms including even-year elections and single-round RCV
0:13:53
·
6 min
John Kaehny, Executive Director of Reinvent Albany, commends the commission's preliminary report and urges the adoption of two key election reforms: moving to even-year elections and implementing a "vote once" process, which is a single-round ranked-choice voting (RCV) system with no primaries.
He highlights that even-year elections are supported by evidence and that a single RCV election could enhance competitiveness, voter turnout (citing San Francisco's 79% turnout), and save money.
As an alternative to "vote once," Kaehny suggests considering semi-open primaries to give unaffiliated voters a voice.
John Kaehny
0:13:53
It's John Caney.
0:13:54
Thank you, and thanks for the opportunity to comment today remotely.
0:13:57
Appreciate that.
0:13:58
And, compliments to the commission and your staff on your preliminary report.
0:14:03
You know, my job is to read through stuff like this, and yours is particularly good.
0:14:07
So kudos on that.
0:14:09
My organization, Reinvent Albany, advocates for more transparent and accountable New York government.
0:14:14
We have a staff of policy experts who have drafted and passed, dozens of city and state bills, and we're frequently called upon by journalists and elected officials to help them decipher complicated public policy issues.
0:14:29
So that preliminary staff report is excellent, and it emphasizes long standing concerns about New York City's poor voter turnout, which, the preceding two commenters did a great job, discussing.
0:14:43
The preliminary report identifies two basic interventions.
0:14:48
One is even your elections, which are a very good idea and supported by enormous evidence, and some kind of open primaries.
0:14:56
The commission report also notes that about a million New York City voters are unaffiliated and therefore can't vote in party primaries.
0:15:04
So research by political scientists suggest that the two biggest factors that drive local election turnout is, one, whether the election's in an even year, which really matters because of federal elections, and two, how competitive a race is.
0:15:19
Now New York City rarely has a competitive Democratic primary and general election for citywide offices and typically has low turnout for one or both.
0:15:29
So today, Reinvent Albany is here to urge you to place two charter changes on that, that had to do with elections on the ballot.
0:15:36
First, even your elections, great idea.
0:15:39
Don't need to get into details.
0:15:41
Many have spoken to this.
0:15:42
Second, we ask you to consider a vote once process, which FairVote calls single round RCV, and that consists of a single election using ranked choice voting and no primaries.
0:15:57
Those should be a big change, but as the council member noted, this is what dozens of cities and local governments across The United States are already doing and have been doing.
0:16:07
And re ranked choice voting has really changed everything, the possibilities that New York has to do things that are more rational and logical.
0:16:18
And the overwhelming logic of ranked choice voting is to hold one election and eliminate primaries.
0:16:25
Turning eligible voters voters out once is pretty easy to do and far easier than turning them out twice.
0:16:33
RCV elections guarantee a high level of competitiveness without splitting the vote, so that competitiveness is an attractive thing.
0:16:41
Now San Francisco, which we heard mentioned, uses general election RCB process with no primary, a vote one system, and they had voter turnout of 79% in their twenty twenty four mayoral election.
0:16:54
New York City's last mayoral election had 23% turnout.
0:16:59
79% versus 23%.
0:17:01
Now there's a lot of confounding factors that we could look at, but that shows you the magnitude of the difference between those different systems.
0:17:10
Another plus to what we call vote once is that it could dilute the ability of a single issue independent expenditure, and those New York can't constrain.
0:17:22
They're constitutionally protected by the Supreme Court now.
0:17:27
To sway an elect sway an election in a general election with only two candidates, you could easily have an IE come in and drop $1,020,000,000 dollars to wreck a candidate on a single issue, and it's much harder to do that when you have a larger field in a ranked choice vote with large number of candidates.
0:17:46
So for instance, San Francisco limits their field to 10.
0:17:50
Now, vote once, does not have to be nonpartisan.
0:17:55
Candidates could list their political parties to help voters, you know, with more information about who they're voting for.
0:18:02
These people do care about that, but it doesn't have to.
0:18:05
And, of course, it would save a bundle to not have to have two elections.
0:18:10
It would save 30 to $40,000,000 to only have one, and some of that saving could be put towards encouraging people to vote in other forms.
0:18:20
Now can can New York City do this through charter change?
0:18:24
Probably not.
0:18:25
But the charter has the city's been doing things via charter change with the hope of getting the state to pass state laws that enable them with some success, and we think it's totally possible.
0:18:42
Now if that's too scary to have the the single vote RCV vote once, we we think you should look at semi open primaries where anyone can vote in a primary of their choosing.
0:18:59
Those are used in Massachusetts and were recently approved in Washington DC.
0:19:04
Again, we think vote once makes a hell of a lot more sense and has all the upside, but, if it's too politically bold, then semi open primaries would, give those 1,000,000 unaffiliated voters a voice, which matters.
0:19:21
Lastly, unrelated to this, we strongly support making, mayor's office of contract services a, full mayoral agency with robust powers, as your excellent report identifies New York City procurement process is seriously screwed up.
0:19:38
It's something that we look at carefully, and we'd like to see a strong mocks with, robust authority to standardize procurement, and, get other agencies to get their act together.
0:19:49
So thanks again, and, happy to, answer any questions.