BY CAITLYN JONSSON
Coming just before National Voter Registration Day, the New York City Council Committee of Higher Education met in New York City Hall to discuss enhancing civic engagement and voter turnout among CUNY students. “Access to education is a right, not a privilege,” said Borough of Manhattan Community College delegate Alexis Ramirez amidst testimony to the City Council on Monday.
CUNY has partnered with organizations like the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) to promote civic engagement, run debate watch parties, and host events like National Disability Voter Week. CUNY provides voter registration coordinators on each campus, yet challenges remain to engage students civically. Members of the CUNY Student Senate (USS) identified education and transportation as key barriers to participation in election cycles.
Denise Maybank, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at CUNY, cited statistics showing that student voter turnout peaks during presidential elections, with a turnout of 71.8% in 2020, but remains low during midterms, such as the 43.8% turnout that same year.
New York City voting turnout among those between the ages of 18-29 has been below all other age groups in general elections over the past decade, according to data from the New York Campaign Finance Board. In recent available data from the 2022 general election, 26.6% of voters between the ages of 18-29 participated, in comparison to 32.9% of those between the ages of 30-39, and 37.4% of those between the ages of 40-49.
When it comes to election periods, “too much is at stake, educate yourself, read it for yourself, be an educated voter. It is not about party affiliation but it is about relationship to information,” said Maybank.
Council Member Eric Dinowitz, the Chair of the Committee on Higher Education and the leader of the hearing, stressed that it is CUNY’s duty to prepare students not only academically but also civically. “Civic engagement necessitates the engagement of primary elections,” said Dinowitz. “Every single election is a critical election year. There is not a single election that is not important. The work that CUNY does is critical to ensuring that voters are registered to vote,” he stated.
Megan Ahearn, Program Director for NYPIRG, said that peer-to-peer contact was the “most effective and meaningful technique” for increasing voter engagement. Ahearn, who has worked for NYPIRG for 17 years, expressed that in her experience, “some students said they weren’t involved until they were registered to vote.”
Ahearn noted that a barrier to increased poll turnout lies in New York’s lack of same-day voter registration, which many other states have successfully implemented. She urged the Council to advocate for legislative changes to make same-day registration possible in New York.
Testimony from members of USS CUNY called for more robust voter education to complement efforts of increasing registration rates. Isabel Torres, a sophomore at Queensborough Community College and a USS delegate, said that “students are not educated on what is going on, education is the biggest barrier. Why would students register to vote on something they’re not aware of?”
BMCC’s Ramirez advocated for free MetroCards for students to remove the financial challenges that might hinder a student’s ability to vote. “Part of our plight in the struggle for fairness is the ability to commute… the right to commuting is a necessity,” said Ramirez.
Tanisha Fields, president of the Graduate Student Assembly at Baruch, said that “some students are not engaged because they do not have the knowledge of policies.” However, Fields added that “you don’t have to have full knowledge of policy to be part of advocacy.”
The last day to register to vote in New York for the coming November 5th general election is October 26th, 2024. Students can register to vote online at the Board of Elections.