By SAMUEL MORTEL
If you’re a NYC resident over the age of 18, it’s been almost impossible to avoid the fact that there’s an election less than a month away. This huge swell in public awareness is in large part due to organizations like NYC Votes, an initiative of the New York City Campaign Finance Board centered around getting as many New Yorkers as possible to register for upcoming elections. Described as an organization determined to, “register, educate, and engage voters across the city”, NYC Votes held a public, virtual meeting on October 16th to share plans and strategies on furthering this goal as the endgame nears.
The meeting was hosted by a panel of leading figures from the New York City Campaign Finance Board (NYCCFB). The first presentation, by Content Strategist Lia Seremetis, discussed the effectiveness of the campaign that her team carried out for National Voter Registration Day in which they said they “helped +1,300 New Yorkers in registering to vote, updating their registration, checking their registration status, or taking our pledge to vote in every election.” On top of this, they were able to reach over half a million non-registered individuals.
“Outreach” seemed to be the word of the day, with each speaker going over different methods like posters, murals, and pop-ups meant to bring awareness and get more people registered to vote, including an interview on Spanish-speaking radio station La Mega 97.9 and posts encouraging voter registration on the NYC Ferry Instagram account.
The next speaker was Associate Director of Partnerships Gauree Patel with a list of over 20 organizations and institutions that have collaborated with NYC Votes, including The Brooklyn Movement Center and Brooklyn Public Library. Of these collaborations, Patel said, “Although this is a long list of names, each of these relationships was built by a member on our team and it required deep listening, it required trust building, it required trips all across the city in all of the boroughs. It’s through that effort…that we’ve been able to reach the communities in our priority neighborhoods across the city.”
Patel spent the rest of her segment detailing various ways that she and her team have tried to reach potential voters “at different points along the spectrum, starting with being unregistered and disengaged and progressively moving towards being a frequent voter not just in presidential elections but in city and non-presidential elections as well,” This included a partnership with CUNY to “train student leaders to conduct voter engagement and education across campuses.” Patel closed her presentation with a slide featuring NYC Votes ambassadors at a US Citizenship and Immigration Services ceremony registering new citizens to vote and a picture of a volunteer helping a person being held at a DOC facility fill out a voter registration form.
Despite the fact that the main political event this year is the showdown between Presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, these candidates nor the presidential election were ever specifically brought up throughout the entire meeting. NYC Votes is not an organization that’s centered around the Presidential election and especially not around getting people to vote for a particular side; they’re driven by what they call their “nonpartisan voter initiative.” This meeting and the organization’s philosophy in general is centered on making sure New Yorkers aren’t just politically engaged every four years when there’s time to pick a new president. Because of this, the main topic of conversation for the remainder of the meeting was actually something that most voters might not even be aware of: the six different proposals that are going to be on the ballot statewide.
In a presentation by Policy Manager Sophie Sharpes, each proposal was given its own dedicated slide in which its purpose was laid out. This included the first ballot proposal, which would add protections to reproductive healthcare in the State Bill Of Rights (as well as other anti-discrimination protections based on race, sexuality, and gender identity). This proposal was actually given two slides, unlike the single slide that the five other proposals got, and it’s not hard to imagine why. This ballot proposal could be critical in attracting potential voters as Roe V. Wade and reproductive rights have become a massive political talking point in the past couple years. In fact, there are nine other states across the country including Arizona, Florida, and Maryland, where reproductive rights are also on the ballot. It’s proven that referendums like this can encourage voters who may not be motivated by a specific Presidential candidate to show up on election day just to make their voices heard on one particular issue that they feel strongly about.
After all three presentations, the panel of NYCCFB board members once again took the “main stage” to thank all the presenters and the viewers at home, ending with Assistant Executive Director for Public Affairs Eric Friedman thanking Sharps for her presentation and asserting that, “Amending the state constitution is a really big deal, amending the city charter is a really big deal and New Yorkers should take the time to read out and learn about these important questions.”
With the election just around the corner, you can expect to see more of these strategies and hear more of these talking points for the next couple weeks.