PRESS RELEASE
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Today, the New York City Board of Elections (NYCBOE) will certify the election results from the September 13th primary, in which Common Cause/NY and its partners received hundreds of calls, emails and tweets from New Yorkers who experienced trouble voting.
In response, Common Cause/NY will issue a 30-day notice to the Board for potential violations of the 2017 settlement over the purging of 200,000 voters from the rolls ahead of the presidential primary in April 2016.
After the press conference, Let NY Vote activists will attend the NYCBOE meeting.
Background:
In October 2017, the New York City Board of Elections (NYCBOE) settled a lawsuit with Common Cause/NY, admitting it broke state and federal law when it purged nearly 200,000 voters from the rolls ahead of the presidential primary in April 2016.
In the settlement, NYCBOE agreed to:
- A consent decree that will last at least through the November 2020 election.
- Adopt detailed procedures to ensure that eligible voters are not designated for removal in error, identify procedures used for reinstating improperly removed voters, and produce monthly and annual reports identifying the voters who are being removed the rolls or otherwise subjected to list maintenance.
- Develop a centralized process allowing the NYC BOE to review voter registration data from borough offices, adopt a training program for list maintenance, and update training manuals and materials.
- Conduct an annual audit of list maintenance procedures, and permit the New York Attorney General’s office to conduct semi-annual audits.
- Other enforcement remedies, such as allowing Plaintiffs the ability to object to Board rules or regulations related to list maintenance that fails to ensure compliance with federal law.
This year, Let NY Vote, formerly known as Easy Elections NY, formed as a statewide coalition of organizations & grassroots groups fighting to modernize New York’s elections. The goal is to pass simple solutions in 2019 to improve our elections and remove barriers to registering and voting for all eligible New Yorkers.
The Let NY Vote coalition is made up of over thirty organizations, nonprofits, and labor unions, including Common Cause/NY, Public Citizen, New York State United Teachers, SEIU 32BJ, RWDSU, CWA District 1, as well as the statewide NAACP and the National Action Network, grassroots organizations, faith groups, civil liberties, reproductive and immigrant rights, criminal justice and re-entry groups, New American, and the LGBTQ community. A full list is available at letnyvote.org.
