Elections

“We’re taking on the onslaught of dark money and special interests in the city’s elections,” said Councilman Ben Kallos, chair of the government operations committee and one of the sponsors.

One of the bills introduced by Councilman Ben Kallos, the committee chair, would require the Department of Education, which is already under a requirement to provide voter registration information to graduating seniors, to receive such material from the Board of Elections in other languages, based on schools' student population.

New York City Councilman Ben Kallos, who chairs the Council's governmental operations committee, have the board credit for improvements, saying that “great strides” had been made to “improve the process.”

“However, I grow concerned as 2016 approaches and the presidential election, being an election which people will come out and vote for in numbers we haven’t seen since 2012 and most likely 2008 beforehand ... that the N.Y.C. B.O.E. is not relocating staffers to problem areas where lines form,” Kallos told Capital.

The bill has been heard and is under consideration to be heard by the full Council, according to a spokeswoman for City Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan), chairman of the governmental operations committee.

City Council Member Ben Kallos, chair of the governmental operations committee, will introduce a resolution at Thursday’s full-body Stated Meeting calling on members of the United States Congress to commit to a constitutional amendment that would limit independent expenditures in election campaigns. It is a move aimed at reducing the “dark money” spent during political campaigns and to counteract the Supreme Court’s infamous Citizens United ruling.

“It’s important we put people power over corporate power,” Kallos told Gotham Gazette, “and it’s important to implement public finance to empower voters over independent expenditures.”

Tenants would get a voter registration form with every new lease under a bill that will be introduced in the City Council this week.

Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan) will sponsor the legislation, which would require landlords to distribute the forms, encouraging newcomers to the city to sign up to vote and people who are moving within the five boroughs to update their registration.

“People are coming from all over the country,” Kallos said. “This will make sure that as people get here, they will register to vote as they get their lease.”

Voter participation has been steadily declining for decades, and continues to find shocking new lows. Last November, New York was the fifth worse state in the country for voter participation, with a staggering 29.5 percent turnout. In New York City, the turnout was just above 21 percent.

"In this age of devastatingly low voter confidence in our elections," said George, "making voting easy and convenient for citizens is of critical importance."

Now, two bills introduced by members of the New York City Council aim to do just that.

Tuesday morning, the Committee on Governmental Operations, chaired by Council Member Ben Kallos, a Democrat from Manhattan, discussed two new pieces of legislation that could help re-engage thousands of voters in the election process.

"We want every eligible voter to register and cast a ballot," Kallos told Gotham Gazette. "Absentee ballots are essential to maximizing turnout."

New York City Councilman Ben Kallos plans to introduce legislation today aiming to ensure that city high schools fulfill their legal mandate to distribute voter registration forms to graduating students, in part by instituting a tracking system to be used by the Department of Education.
 
Kallos, who will be joined by Council Members Linda Rosenthal and Fernando Cabrera, said the Young Adult Voter Registration Act already directs both public and private high schools to have voter registration applications available on campus and to hand them out with diplomas upon graduation, but that it has gone largely unimplemented since its passage in 2004.
 
Under his legislation, schools would maintain a stash of voter registration forms in several languages and distribute them to students. The Department of Education would then be required to track how many forms make it back to the city's Board of Elections each year, and to submit annual reports to the City Council. 
 
“The current law just requires that they put voter registrations with diplomas and mail it to the kids. One hundred thousand go out a year, and 100,000 kids do not register to vote,” Kallos said, also noting that in the time since he began helping students register to vote in 2012, he has never called a campus that reported having forms on hand. “We’re just trying to improve it and make sure we’re actually following it,” he said.
 

New Yorkers would be able to cast ballots in municipal elections early — really early — under legislation that is set to be introduced before the City Council on Wednesday.

The bill, sponsored by Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan), would open select polling places for two weeks leading up to election day for elections for mayor, council and other city offices but not for state or federal elections. The bill would apply to both primaries and the general election.

The city would have to open at least 51 polling sites — one in each City Council district — from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. each weekday, and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends, until the Friday before the election.

"Once again, the NYCCFB looks to bring the most innovative practices to campaigns and elections in New York City,” wrote NYC Council Member Ben Kallos, chair of the Council’s Governmental Operations Committee, via e-mail. “Text message contributions will allow residents to donate on their phones with a quick text, encouraging more grassroots candidates with small donor support to run and succeed,” commented Kallos in a response to the hearing.