Photo Courtesy of Edwin Torres/Mayoral Photography Office
Despite an increase in voter registration, turnout fell throughout the Empire State, according to a new report.
By Michael V. Cusenza
At least one 2016 election autopsy has revealed a discouraging trend in Empire State politics: paltry voter turnout.
Despite promising registration numbers, New York’s turnout numbers slipped to new lows this year, according to a New York Public Interest Research Group analysis of the electorate released on Monday.
On Election Day last week, there were more New Yorkers listed on voting rolls as active, registered voters (11,476,534) than in 2008 (10,816,500) or 2012 (10,974,236), NYPIRG noted. In the year leading up to the election, the state saw its largest single-year increase in voter registration in decades – 6.9 percent. With presidential, senatorial, congressional, and state legislative races up and down the ballot, New York instead saw its voter turnout numbers decline.
This is not a new development. According to NYPIRG’s report, turnout among New York’s “most reliable” voting population has dipped lower each of the last two presidential elections. In 2008, turnout among active registered voters statewide was 71.4 percent. That number fell to 65 percent in 2012, and sunk even lower – to 62.45 percent – in 2016. Active, registered voters only include voting-eligible persons who are not only registered in New York, but who have voted in at least one of the previous two federal election cycles, or who have verified their “active” status via communications with their home county’s Board of Elections.
In the city, the active registered voter turnout breakdown reveals big differences among the five boroughs, according to NYPIRG. The downward trajectory in active registered voter turnout in NYC was not consistent among all five boroughs. While turnout fell across the board from 2008 to 2012, the change from 2012 to 2016 is much more borough-specific, the report indicated. Turnout was down only slightly in Queens compared with 2012, “flat-lined” in Manhattan, and increased in Staten Island. Turnout in the Bronx and Brooklyn continued to plummet, with only 53.9 percent of the borough’s most likely group of voters casting a ballot in Brooklyn in 2016 and only 52.4 percent of such voters in the Bronx.
According to NYPIRG, the drop in turnout within New York City is “even more noteworthy” considering that the increase in active registered voters was even more pronounced within the five boroughs over the past year than in the state. New York City saw a 9-percent increase in registered active voters during the past year. Overall, turnout among active registered voters in NYC fell from 64.1 percent in 2008 to 58.5 percent in 2012 to 56.3 percent in 2016.
In the days after Nov. 8, many elected officials in New York decried the current state of ballot casting.
“It’s quite clear that our voting laws, our electoral laws in New York State are fundamentally part of the problem,” said NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We have huge pressure put on our Election Day because there is no other option, because there isn’t early voting. And we saw all over the country that early voting generated tremendous enthusiasm in a number of states and tremendous involvement, and allowed people who have difficult schedules and lots of commitments to still make sure they could vote. Because we don’t have it here, it puts all the pressure on one day, and when a machine breaks down or there’s some other kind of problem, that means that one opportunity someone has to vote may be lost. We wouldn’t have that problem if we have early voting.”
