Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to bring big changes to how New Yorkers go to the polls, proposing several of the voting methods already used in other states.
“Our voting process policies are the worst of any state in the nation,” Bloomberg said Monday at City Hall before outlining reforms including online registration and early voting.
In November’s elections, the state’s participation rate was 32.1 percent, while the national average was 40.3 percent. During the last three federal elections, the state has averaged 47th out of 50 in voter turnout.
New York’s “voting restrictions and requirements actually discourage citizens from participating in elections,” Bloomberg said.
It’s the only state that requires voters applying for an absentee ballot to disclose why they need the ballot. Unlike many other states, New York does not offer early voting, online registration, same-day registration or party switches less than six months before a party primary.
A spokesman for New York Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said that Cuomo would “review the mayor’s proposals and looks forward to working with him, the federal government and others to increase voter participation.”
In 2008, Bloomberg – sometimes bandied about as a potential independent candidate for president in 2012 – successfully campaigned for a change in the city’s term-limit law to allow him to run for a third term as mayor.
