Photo courtesy of the Bronx NAACP
The following story is an updated version of the one that appears in our latest print edition.
As officials from the Bronx office of the New York City Board of Elections were busy tallying votes at their Grand Concourse headquarters to determine the outcome of the District 11 and District 15 City Council special elections a few weeks ago, the president of the Bronx NAACP, said voter education is key to the future of a free and fair society. It may also be key to a more dynamic primary election season.
Biarni Burke, president of the Bronx chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of People of Color, told Norwood News in a telephone interview on Monday, April 12, “Long lines during presidential elections are fixtures for a host of reasons. We have a Board of Elections (BOE) that is still struggling to handle routine elections, and the only saving grace they have is that all too often, we have very low turnout, except every four years when there’s an exciting presidential election.”
Image courtesy of the NAACP
Burke continued, “I think they may be making some progress. I’m going to remain an objective critic of the Board of Elections, but I do think that, as we move forward with early voting and more mail-in voting, we may have an opportunity to see improvement [with long lines and other issues].”
As was widely reported, the State of Georgia recently changed certain laws which impact upon the voting process in that state, making it a crime to bring food or water to someone waiting in line to vote. Reflecting on this, Burke said the work of the NAACP is never over. “Nearly our entire existence now is based on voter empowerment, and the components of that will start with, obviously, voter registration, and voter education follows that,” he said.
Source: New York City Board of Elections
In reference to those recent changes in the State of Georgia, Doug Linkhart, president of the National Civics League, said, “Seriously? Making it unlawful to give water to people waiting in polling lines? The Georgia General Assembly has sunk to a new low on upholding democracy, though legislators in many other states are hurrying to replicate this harm, with Texas even targeting specific populations.” He added, “There is a clear need for protections at the national level, and HR 1, awaiting approval in the U.S. Senate, will go a long ways in safeguarding voter rights and our democracy.”
According to Congress, the purpose of HR 1 [For the People Act of 2021] is to expand Americans’ access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, strengthen ethics rules for public servants, and implement other anti-corruption measures for the purpose of fortifying democracy, as well as for other purposes.
Photo by José A. Giralt
Assessing the voting climate in the context of The Bronx and New York City generally, Burke said, “We don’t have a voter registration problem in Bronx County,” before adding, “of course, it’s important to register all eligible voters.”
Burke then went on to talk about other aspects of the voting process, saying, “What we have [in the Bronx] is a voter education problem, and voter participation problem, [as opposed to voter registration], and we see that in elections repeatedly.”
He added, “For instance, we just finished two special elections on March 23 [Districts 11 and 15], and another one on December 22 [District 12]. We tracked those, and we did a great deal of outreach,” he said, adding that part of that outreach was including instructions for voters on the new ranked choice voting process.
Source: New York City Board of Elections
Norwood News spoke to some voters on election night on the topic of ranked choice voting at different polling sites. At JHS 80 The Mosholu Parkway in Norwood, Dionna Vargas, 27, said, “It was really easy. So, once I knew exactly where my voting place was, I walked in. There was a bunch of help ready as soon as I walked in.” She added, “[They] assisted me with what table to go to, based on your address, and then the voting process was very simple.”
Another voter at the same center, who preferred not to disclose his name, said of ranked choice voting, “I thought it was great because this way, I have to agonize less over who I want, and I’d been hearing about it since it started in England, I think, and its interesting results, so I’ll be curious to see what happens here in the city.”
(Fairvote.org tracks which countries use ranked choice voting versus other voting systems. The United Kingdom actually uses the First Past The Post or “plurality” voting system whereby the candidate who wins the most votes in each constituency is elected.)
Source: New York City Board of Elections
Asked when he made up his mind about which candidate was getting his first choice ranking, the voter said he decided the day before the election. Asked what was the deciding factor, he said, “Reading their résumé, and their affiliations, and their allegiances, and one of them….. their union… sponsorship… what is the right word?” Norwood News asked, “Endorsement?” The voter replied, “Endorsement, yes.”
Another male voter who did not wish to disclose his name said of ranked choice voting, “It’s simple. The only confusing aspect is the first, second, and third and fourth and fifth choices. You know, I think … because you wonder if you pick a candidate, if you could just blacken in the oval for just that one candidate across the way, but obviously, after the fact, I find that that’s not necessary. Just one oval for the candidate you want suffices.”
Photo by José A. Giralt
Asked by Norwood News, if that meant the voter had only voted for one candidate, the voter replied, “That’s correct.” Asked when he made up his mind about his preferred candidate, the voter said, “Oh, I think I knew a few days back. I’d have to say the mail-in voting and the people who endorse certain candidates, you know, decided who I vote for.”
Meanwhile, when asked about the low voter turnout for the special election, one volunteer polling site worker said, “You should’ve been here last time [for the presidential election on Nov. 3]. I got here at 5 in the morning and there was
already a line forming outside. And there was a line of people all day.”
Source: New York City Board of Elections
The NAACP found that voter turnout accounted for 7.8 percent, 4.2 percent, and 7.5 percent of registered voters in Districts 11, 15 and 12, respectively. [Burke said this was based on a snapshot of voter registration figures taken on a particular day. The numbers may vary since then.] The group is currently running an election season contest among Bronx City Council District voters to see which district will achieve the highest voter turnout this election season. They publish updates regularly as part of their voter outreach efforts.
According to the BOE, as of Feb. 21, 2021, there are 872,925 registered voters in The Bronx among its roughly 1.435 million residents, based on 2019 census estimates, meaning 60.83 percent of the borough’s residents were, at least, registered to vote as of that date.
The borough’s median age is the city’s youngest at 34. This compares with a median age of 37 in Manhattan, 39 in Queens, 35 in Brooklyn and 40 on Staten Island. Many Bronx residents may not yet be of voting age. This may change over time, increasing the borough’s percentage of registered voters.
Source: New York City Board of Elections
Indeed, a review of Bronx city council district data shows that of those voters who are registered, the majority do, in fact, vote. According to BOE data as of Feb. 21, 2021, in District 8 which covers parts of the Bronx and Manhattan, there were 56,455 Bronx registered voters, of which 50,154 (88.83%) were deemed active and 6,301 (11.16%) were deemed inactive. Meanwhile, there were 102,617 registered voters in District 11. Of this total, 89,507 (87.22%) were deemed active, while 13,110 (12.77%) were deemed inactive.
In the recent District 11 special election, 9,555 people showed up at the polls, well short of the BOE active voter assessment of 89,507. Exhausted ballots accounted for 552. Lower than average voter turn-out is typical for special elections. However, according to now Councilman Eric Dinowitz, who won the recent District 11 race, the turnout was higher in that March 23 special election than in the 2014, 2017, and 2019 Democratic primaries, as well as in the 2019 Public Advocate special election.
The district had been unrepresented since Dec. 31, following former Councilman Andrew Cohen’s resignation. He was elected as a judge to the Bronx Supreme Court bench in November 2020.
Source: New York City Board of Elections
In District 12, as of Feb. 21, 2021, there were 112,477 registered voters, with 100,844 (89.65%) deemed active, and 11,633 (10.35%) deemed inactive. This makes it the most active voting district in the borough, relative to the number of registered voters.
In District 13, there were 100,602 registered voters as of Feb. 21, 2021, of which 90,079 (89.53%) were deemed active, and 10,523 (10.46%) deemed inactive. Meanwhile, in District 14, there were 94,515 registered voters as of the same date, with 83,317 (88.15%) deemed active, and 11,198 (11.85%) deemed inactive.
In District 15, there were 93,211 registered voters, of which 80,845 (86.73%) were deemed active, while 12,366 (13.26%) were deemed inactive. This district had, similarly, been unrepresented since the recent resignation of former Councilman Ritchie Torres, following his election to Congress in November 2020. He now represents Congressional District 15.
Photo by José A. Giralt
Total votes (both eligible and ineligible) in the District 15 special election amounted to 3,976 according to the BOE. Burke said turnout was around 4 percent, again, well below the BOE active voter assessment of 86.73 percent. “There are some 80,000 registered voters in the 15th, and the turnout was 3,400 [roughly],” Burke said. “So, our focus is to try and increase voter participation, and it is a struggle.”
Again, it was expected, to some degree, that lower voter turnout was likely in such a special election. As reported by Norwood News, Hostos adjunct professor and tenant lawyer, Oswald Feliz, emerged victorious in the District 15 race.
Meanwhile, in District 16, there were 100,060 registered voters as of Feb. 21, of which 88,954 (88.9%) were deemed active while 11,106 (11.09%) were deemed inactive. In District 17, there were 102,440 registered voters as of Feb. 21, with 90,568 (88.41%) deemed active and 11,872 (11.58%) deemed inactive.
In District 18, there were 110,532 registered voters as of the same date. Of these, 97,997 (88.65%) were deemed to be active, while 12,535 (11.34%) were deemed inactive. Finally, in District 22, which straddles parts of The Bronx and Queens, there were 16 Bronx registered voters, of which 14 (87.5%) were deemed active and 2 (15%) deemed inactive.
Source: New York City Board of Elections
To combat what he called “voter self-suppression,” Burke said voters needed a concrete reason to vote. “That’s part of our job at the [NAACP Bronx] branch,” he said. “This is the biggest challenge: to help people make that concrete, tangible connection between their existence, and that their lives are so linked to the decisions of elected folks at the local level.”
The candidates, of course, play their role in this regard. A volunteer security guard who was located outside the Mosholu Parkway polling site on election night said, “Hey, you from the Norwood News? Let me tell you, I never received so much mail from candidates like this election. It was like every week I’d get all this mail to vote for this candidate or that candidate. I never seen so much mail [from candidates] before.”
Norwood News also spoke with some residents after the polls closed, outside the Tracey Towers voting center in Norwood on election night, March 23. Most preferred not to give their names, and a good percentage said they were ineligible to vote. One young woman at the bus-stop, who was about 20 years old, said she had been unaware of the election.
Asked if she tended to follow local media, she replied, “I do, I follow local media and watch the news and whatnot,” she said. “I also work a lot, so…and I didn’t see it in any schools or on any signs.” she added.
Photo by José A. Giralt
The resident said she would have voted had she known about the election, and outlined some of the issues that were of concern to her. “Definitely sanitation issues, especially with COVID… sanitation and somewhere for kids to go, like cleaner parks. Clean up the parks now that springtime is coming so that they can do normal things,” she said. When asked if noise in the parks, late at night, in summertime, bothered her, she said too much noise, too late at night, was not good.
Meanwhile, Burke said New York City must make the voting process easier. “Access to voting should be absolutely unimpeded in any way that anyone can imagine,” he said. “That’s just the responsibility of us all to ensure there’s nothing that impedes access to voting.”
As reported by Norwood News last October, in the context of the long lines seen at various Bronx polling sites during the early voting period in the lead up to the November 2020 presidential election, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents the 14th congressional district in the Bronx, said, “In the United States of America, where a two, three, four-hour wait is acceptable, just because it’s happening in a blue state doesn’t mean that it’s not voter suppression.”
Photo by José A. Giralt
The congresswoman added, at the time, that if such long wait times had been witnessed in swing states, it would have received national media coverage. “So, I don’t want us to think that just because it’s a blue state, that it isn’t a problem,” she said. “There’s a lot that needs to be done, but at the same time, I’m thrilled to see how many, who are overcoming this injustice, [are] waiting in lines anyway, bringing communities supplies, snacks [and] lawn chairs.”
The issue of voter suppression is not a recent one. Back in April 2020, we reported how Torres received the endorsement of the Voter Protection Project, a political PAC working to end partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression across the country. Torres later went on to win the primary and the general election. In the meantime, further to the results of Census 2020, New York State has since lost one congressional seat, as reported by The New York Times.
Last October, Norwood News also reported on a virtual discussion that was held ahead of the presidential election during which Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who represents the 81st Assembly District in the Bronx, and other elected officials and community activists addressed the subject of voter suppression. Among other topics, the group called for the abolition of the cost of mailing back absentee ballots, since many people at the time were struggling, and indeed continue to struggle, to come up with the cost of doing so.
Photo by José A. Giralt
In addition to District 11 and District 15, Bronxites will also be keeping a close eye on the upcoming District 13, District 14 and District 16 City Council June primaries, due to the fact that incumbent City Council Members, Mark Gjonaj, Fernando Cabrera, and Vanessa Gibson, respectively, are stepping down.
Vying for their places are a slate of, in many cases, younger candidates, eager to get their foot on the political ladder, inspired by a recent wave of young Bronx Democratic leaders like Ocasio-Cortez, Torres, and Congressman Jamaal Bowman.
As reported by Norwood News, the Board of Elections announced on Thursday, April 29, that the candidates who made the ballot in the District 13 primary race are Monique S Johnson, Irene Estrada, Marjorie Velazquez, Marilyn Soto and John Perez.
Source: New York City Board of Elections
In District 14, the candidates are Haile Rivera, Yudelka Tapia, Adolfo Abreu, Pierina Sanchez, Socrates Solano and Fernando Aquino, and in District 16, Althea Stevens, Yves Filius, Ahmadou Diallo, Eric Stevenson and Abdourahamane Diallo will be vying for that council seat.
The full list of candidates who made it onto the ballot in each Bronx race, as well as in the citywide races can be read here.
On the topic of senior voters, and those with disabilities, Burke said, “We now have early voting, and we’ve got the write-in,” he said, referring to mail-in ballots. “I think the write-in is here to stay in New York, and that’s a good thing. Absentee voting has to stay in place.”
“We need to ensure and look at the early voting and see if there’s an opportunity to maybe expand it. If we can get people more comfortable with the idea of mail-in ballots, that, I think, will certainly assist with our seniors and individuals who have some challenges making it to the polls.”
Source: New York City Board of Elections
Burke added, “For years, we did quite a bit with the absentee ballot voting before it became the norm with pre-COVID. When COVID came in, of course, that was the reasonable thing to do – go to the mail-in ballots.”
Indeed, one factor which can only serve to increase voter participation would be the normalization of the automatic issuance of absentee ballot applications to voters well in advance of an election, as was mandated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, by executive order, before last year’s primary elections. That action eliminated the need for voters to have to formally request them, speeding up the overall voting process.
In January 2021, the governor outlined various legislative proposals to reform the voting process in New York State, following the “lessons learned” from the previous year’s primaries. One such proposal was to allow voters more time (45 days instead of 30) to apply for their absentee ballot applications, ahead of each election.
Source: New York City Board of Elections
However, given the governor mandated the automatic issuance of ballot applications to every eligible New York voter ahead of the June 2020 primaries, and given that, despite taking those emergency measures, mail delays with the receipt of such ballot applications still arose, as reported at the time, Norwood News asked the governor’s office in January 2021 why he was proposing more time for voters to request a ballot application, rather than simply mandating, as a permanent legislative reform, the automatic issuance of ballot applications.
This would eliminate at least one step in the current mail-in voting process that lends itself to potential delays. We did not receive an immediate response from the governor’s office. We have since followed up on this point, and did not receive an immediate response.
Another voting enhancement to the voting process proposed last year by Assemblyman Dinowitz was the implementation of ballot tracking technology with the aim of tracking the receipt of such absentee ballot applications, once requested by voters, similar to the way in which mail-order packages are tracked.
"Ok, I get the idea. I get the idea" — Stacey Abrams gave Sen. John Kennedy waaaaay more than he bargained for when he asked her to list off provisions of the Georgia voter suppression bill she objects to pic.twitter.com/PP7s7ZltMS
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 21, 2021
In conclusion, Burke said anything that will make the voting process easier will help voter turnout in the upcoming primaries. Of the recent special elections, he said the impact of ranked choice voting was probably felt. “There are a number of votes that will be voided for some reason because maybe folks made some mistake on voting for one person all five times or something like that. You’re going to get those incidents,” he said.
“We’ve got to drill down and get folks to engage in the election, understanding the value of their vote… that it has too much value for them to neglect it.”
admin
Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.
English
Arabic
Bengali
Chinese (Simplified)
French
Spanish