This Tuesday the Civic Engagement Center, in collaboration with the Campaign Finance Board of New York, hosted a roundtable that focused on the upcoming elections and voter-turnout outreach into immigrant communities. While the panelists touched on a variety of topics related to civic engagement, they were unified in their messaging: go vote!
NYC Votes 2023 General Election Voter Guide
Voting for the New York general election is on Tuesday, November 7th; depending on the district, people will be balloting for offices such as City Council, District Attorney, State Supreme Court, Civil Court and other proposals. In Manhattan, due to redistricting, every City Council seat is up for grabs. Early voting runs from October 28th to November 5th.
Voting is one of the most sacred rights in our nation’s charter and the representatives from the CEC and CFB are focused on imparting this notion to the average resident. Through their content and messaging, they remind them that they’re legally permitted to request and receive 3 hours of paid time off either at the start or end of their shift in order to make it to the polls.
Furthermore, both the CEC and CFB are concentrated on ensuring that language is not a barrier to entry into the civic process. New York residents speak a combined total of 700 different languages and nearly 50% of all households speak a second language. All throughout election day, as well as selectively during early voting, the CEC will provide interpreters at poll sites for the following languages: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Cantonese, Mandarin), French, Haitian Creole, Italian, Korean, Polish, Russian, Urdu, and Yiddish. Those that wish to are legally entitled to arrive at the polling station with an interpreter of their own, provided it isn’t an individual that is in a position to potentially influence their vote (ie. their Union rep or their boss).
NYC voter turnout is at a pitifully low level, on average 40% of eligible voters turn out on election day; for reference, national turnout for the 2020 presidential election was 66%. The CEC’s primary focus is reframing the narrative of democracy; panelist Dr. Sarah Sayeed says that we are at an “inflection point” when it comes to civic engagement in the country. She spoke passionately about how many people have lost faith in the democratic systems of government and stressed that if people mobilize to the polls they can achieve tangible change within their communities.
In its attempts to reach voters and engage them in the civic process, the CEC runs a program called Participatory Budgeting where NYC residents can propose ideas on how to spend a small portion of the city’s budget and subsequently vote on a selection of these proposals. This system purposely has fewer barriers to entry than regular voting; Until November 19th, all NYC residents 11 years or older, regardless of immigration status, can submit their ideas for how to spend part of the city’s budget on projects to address community needs.
