A ballot question would begin revising the City Charter and State Constitution to move New York City municipal elections from odd-numbered years to presidential-election years. The change would align city election timing with presidential contests, as seen recently in Baltimore and Los Angeles. Proponents including Governor Kathy Hochul argue that combining elections would raise voter participation, citing historic disenfranchisement and lower turnout in non-presidential years. City figures show just over 60 percent turnout in the presidential race versus 23 percent in the 2021 city general election. Overall city turnout has trended downward from about 32 percent in 2001 to a low near 20 percent in 2013.
The upcoming vote for mayor and other municipal offices is the main event on Election Day, but New Yorkers will also weigh in on a ballot question that, if approved, would start the process of revising the City Charter and the State Constitution to move city elections from the current odd-numbered-year schedule and make them coincide with the year we pick presidential candidates. If that happens, we'll be joining cities like Baltimore and Los Angeles that recently changed their calendars.
"There's not the voter participation that we should have in a country like the United States of America," Hochul told me recently. "It is a privilege to vote, people shed blood for this right, it was denied to people of color for so many decades - for a hundred years - and people won that right. I want more people to exercise. And what happens is in a non-presidential election, non-governor's election year, there's not as much attention."
No argument there; the numbers show that lots more New Yorkers come out to vote for president than for mayor or any other local office. Last year, according to city figures, just over 60 percent of the city's 4.7 million active registered voters turned out in the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. That's not far behind the national average of around 64 percent, and much higher than the 23 percent who voted in the 2021 general election for New York City offices.
Collection
[
|
...
]