Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
TESTIMONY
Testimony by Nia Alvarez-Mapp from Rank the Vote NY on the timing of election reform
2:18:18
·
3 min
Nia Alvarez-Mapp, Lead Organizer for Rank the Vote New York, testifies about the proposed changes to the primary system.
While supporting the concept of open primaries, she expresses concern about the timing and lack of preparation for introducing another major reform so soon after ranked-choice voting (RCV).
She emphasizes that the success of RCV was built on years of community outreach and education, and urges the commission to allow for a more open and delayed debate on any new changes.
- Alvarez-Mapp highlights the success of RCV, which was built on extensive community outreach and trust-building.
- She states that any new reform must be simple and easy to communicate, especially to new or infrequent voters.
- Her coalition members felt they could not fully comprehend the new proposals while they were focused on get-out-the-vote efforts for the recent primary.
- She requests a delay to allow for more research, debate, and community input on the open primary proposal.
Nia Alvarez-Mapp
2:18:18
Hi.
2:18:19
I'm gonna try to beat the clock here.
2:18:21
My name is Nia Versmap.
2:18:23
I am the lead organizer for Rank the Vote New York, soon to be NY, with the work we're doing with Upstate with for RCV.
2:18:29
We are a coalition dedicated to ensuring all eligible New Yorkers can vote and understand the voting system they encounter.
2:18:36
Our coalition began six years ago, funny enough, with this very much, Charter Revision Commission here and advocating for the inclusion of RCV in the ballot.
2:18:45
Thanks to the collective advocacy, nearly 1,000,000 New Yorkers have voted this year's primary using RCV, a significant milestone considering it actually believed I believe it was doubled amount since it was first game about in 2021.
2:18:58
The success of New York's of RCV is built on years of consistent community outreach and education and trust building.
2:19:05
RCV's adoption shows that New Yorkers are open to reforms, but only when they are clear, inclusive, and well explained.
2:19:12
Any expansion such as closed primary closed or semi open primaries or take two must remain simple and easy to communicate, especially to new or infrequent voters.
2:19:24
This results from looking the results of this past RCV primaries may have looked easy from June 24 to July 1, but no one really ever considers the nine months of preparing for these results, such as regular planning meetings, community outreach education for all five boroughs, quite frankly, civic engagement one zero one, translation services and supplies, and navigating challenges like voter apathy, limited resources, and technical barriers.
2:19:49
These efforts ensure that voters feel empowered and heard and confident in their choices.
2:19:54
When talking with the 50 plus people in my, in the ranked choice, rank to vote coalition, there was concerns that they were not able to fully understand and comprehend what's happening here because they were also working on get the get out the vote efforts in the primaries.
2:20:10
As you see now, there's a more open debate with because everyone's sort of even relative not rested, but still have a concern to be able to express their opinions.
2:20:20
There is a real list of lack of preparation and timing when it comes to introducing new reforms with voter elections.
2:20:27
As a matter of fact, when we look when we talked about RCD in the past, some of the critiques that we have were given was due to older and black see, residents and citizens that they did not understand it.
2:20:38
I'm curious to see if the commission have ever con has considered that, especially considering that, other organizations such as NWCP also expressed those concerns when it came to that explanation of outreach and understanding.
2:20:51
We really do support the concept of open primaries, but we just wanted to have a little bit more delay because we wanna have a more open debate.
2:20:59
We wanna make sure that all us people, especially in our written testimonies that you'll be hearing soon from our various coalitions, will have a better say and insight and research to be able to give a full informed opinion on it.
2:21:10
And, again, the results really shows the consistent effort and community outreach.
2:21:14
It takes all of us to be able to make sure people get out to vote.
2:21:17
Mhmm.
2:21:17
And, again, thank you all so much.