Mayor Adams at the polls (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
In the last municipal election in 2021, only one out of every four registered voters cast ballots for mayor and other city offices, a major drop-off from the 2020 presidential election and little more than half the turnout seen in the 2022 state and congressional elections. The poor showing was the latest in a decades-long trend of dropping voter participation in local elections, in both the party primaries and general contests.
On Wednesday, the New York City Council will hold an oversight hearing examining ways to boost civic participation in local elections from mayor to district leader. At the center of the discussion is a resolution to move city elections from odd to even years, in line with the state and federal cycles.
"It's important to have higher turnout and I think making even year elections for [municipal] elections would be a great way to start," said City Council Member Sandra Ung, a Queens Democrat, the resolution's prime sponsor, and chair of the Committee on Governmental Operations, which is holding the hearing.
The hearing comes just weeks before the June primaries in this year's elections for all 51 City Council seats. Turnout is expected to be incredibly low in what will likely be many decisive contests in the overwhelmingly Democratic city, as is turnout for the general election when there is expected to be a handful of competitive races but little else on the ballot this year to help draw people to the polls.
Proponents of moving city elections to even years argue it would lead to a larger and more diverse electorate and reduce administrative costs. Some election observers and political consultants have raised concerns that making the change could lead to more confusion, creating longer ballots with less information about down-ballot races.
The Council doesn't have the power to make the change on its own. The resolution calls for state lawmakers to amend New York’s constitution to allow the city to move its elections to even-numbered gubernatorial election years. That would require passage in successive state legislative sessions and then approval by voters statewide; the soonest that could happen is November 2025. Depending on how such an amendment is written, it would then require changes to state law and the New York City Charter, which could be done by City Council passage and the mayor's signature or a charter revision commission and passage by voters.
The resolution was introduced in May and currently has four Council sponsors, including Ung. Last fall, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said she would "definitely" support the move to even-numbered years at a breakfast hosted by good government group Citizens Union, which supports the resolution (and is cited in it for its recent research on the subject). In May, the New York City Campaign Finance Board recommended city elections be moved to either presidential or gubernatorial years. According to the CFB's annual voter analysis report, average turnout in mayoral elections over the past 20 years has been just 29.5%, significantly lower than the 35.6% and 60.8% average turnout for gubernatorial and presidential elections, respectively.
The six largest cities with even-year elections have average turnout that far exceeds their odd-year counterparts, according to an analysis from Citizens Union that is also cited in CFB's recommendation. Big cities that recently consolidated elections, including Phoenix, Austin, El Paso, Baltimore, and Los Angeles, saw mayoral turnout nearly double and in some cases increased by 460%, according to Citizens Union.
"There is no better way to boost voter turnout in New York City than by moving our municipal elections to even-numbered years," said Ben Weinberg, policy director at Citizens Union, which put out a report last December arguing for the switch. The report cites studies that found voters in off-year elections tend to be older and "skew whiter and wealthier." Spokespeople for good government groups Common Cause New York and Reinvent Albany said those organizations also support the resolution.
According to Ung, part of the problem stems from a lack of information about the different levels of elected government and the timing of their contests.
"One of the biggest, on-the-ground comments I always get from people [when campaigning] is, 'didn't we already vote?'" Ung said.
The issue is heighted in the election cycles following the decennial U.S. Census count, when the entire City Council goes up for election twice in four years, once under the last decade's district lines and again two years later under new ones. This year, all 51 City Council seats are up for election again just two after the 2021 election when the current officeholders were all first elected or re-elected. "A lot of people were thinking of City Council as four years," Ung said. Another concern is a drop-off in enthusiasm for off-year elections: "Voter fatigue is real," she said.
The news publication City & State New York reported some campaign consultants oppose changing the political calendar on which they make their living after CFB published the recommendation in May. Those in opposition primarily cited the potential for voter confusion and the shrinking local news market; with fewer reporters covering local races, opaque independent expenditures will have a greater influence on down-ballot elections.
Election lawyer Sarah Steiner told Gotham Gazette that having multiple ballot configurations is already a burden for election administrators. Consolidating state and city elections could compound that problem by adding multiple ballot styles to a single district including, in the case of primaries, ballots with both traditional and ranked-choice voting methods, she said (New York City uses ranked-choice voting for party primary and special elections for municipal seats). That would be exacerbated further if the courts approve a city law allowing non-citizen permanent residents to vote in city races.
Steiner also said making this change would require county parties from all five boroughs to align their voting on partisan positions like district leader.
"There are a lot of things that this resolution doesn't anticipate and doesn't account for," Steiner said.
That also includes the long ballots such a system would produce. "These are going to be easily four-page ballots and my experience with voters is that they trail off," she said, meaning some voters might not even cast a preference for down-ballot races. According to Citizens Union, potential drop-off wouldn't undermine the likely increase in overall voter turnout. "The number of new voters gained in consolidated elections far exceeds the votes lost due to ballot-off," the report states.
According to the CFB's own recommendation, consolidating elections could mean general election voters rely more on a party line in down-ballot races. "Another concern is that on-cycle elections would increase the amount of influence that national partisanship has on local elections," the report states. CFB representatives are expected to testify at the oversight hearing Wednesday.
It is unclear exactly what elected offices the resolution would apply to or how state lawmakers may interpret it. The resolution only specifies "New York City elections," which could be up for interpretation. While it would clearly apply to the City Council and citywide offices of mayor, comptroller, and public advocate, it may not apply to state and party offices that also fall on odd-year municipal election years. For example, district attorneys are technically state positions, even though their elections occur in odd years.
According to Ung's office, CFB and Citizens Union were invited to testify, along with advocacy groups Democracy Now and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. It is unclear if other government entities were invited or plan to testify, including the New York City Board of Elections, which administers city, state, and federal elections, and the Civic Engagement Commission, which is responsible for increasing voter participation. Those testifying may offer any number of ideas for increasing voter turnout in New York City, including, for example, moving to open primaries.
On Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams and the city’s still-new Civic Engagement Commission announced a $2 million public education campaign about ranked-choice voting and language access in the June primaries.
"I expect a robust hearing about it," Ung said of the notion of moving to even-year city elections. "It actually has increased voter turnout in other states, other cities, that have tried this so I'm hoping for the same for New York."
Also at Wednesday’s hearing the governmental operations committee is scheduled to consider unrelated bills on campaign finance and city employee identification requirements.
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by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
@GeringerSameth @GothamGazette
