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ext week, voters will cast their ballots in a smattering of races across the state. Up for grabs are a hodgepodge of county executive, district attorney, mayoral and municipal legislature posts, as well as a handful of vacant state Senate and Assembly seats in Albany. There are no presidential, congressional or statewide elections, and no New York City contests, aside from a few special elections and a slate of judgeships. Most of the campaigns are snoozers. Some candidates are running unopposed, others with token opposition. In many districts, winning the September primary was all that mattered. Even in the races garnering more headlines, such as the Nassau County and Staten Island district attorney fights and the Binghamton battle to replace ex-state Sen. Tom Libous, most voters are likely to skip a trip to the polls. Altogether, it’s shaping up to be another lonely day at the ballot box. But what’s surprising is not the lack of voter engagement – it’s that it doesn’t have to be this way. Turnout in other jurisdictions makes clear just how subpar New York’s showing is, and recent trends offer little hope for
improvement. Last year Gov. Andrew Cuomo won a second term with the lowest gubernatorial vote total since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1930. Only a quarter of New York residents of voting age cast a ballot in the race – higher than Texas but lower than every other state. A similar figure estimating total turnout among eligible voters found New York did slightly better, with a 29 percent turnout, but the state still ranked second to last. In contrast, 58 percent of eligible voters in Maine cast a ballot. Americans often assume that their democracy is a model for the world, but a global comparison of voter participation indicates otherwise. In 2012 the United States had a turnout of slightly more than half – 53.6 percent – of its voting age population, surpassing only Japan, Chile and Switzerland among countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The 30 other OECD countries outperformed the U.S., including seven with a turnout exceeding 80 percent. It’s only a slight exaggeration to describe New York as the worst of the worst. In off-cycle elections like 2015, it gets worse still. Fewer than a quarter
of active, registered Democratic voters cast a ballot in the 2013 New York City mayoral primary. When Bill de Blasio advanced as the Democratic nominee, nearly three-quarters of the city’s electorate didn’t vote – neither for him nor for anyone else. In other local races, participation often drops even further. Take the office of Staten Island district attorney, which was recently vacated when Dan Donovan was elected to Congress: The last time it was an open race, in 2003, turnout rose to 20 percent, then dwindled to 12 percent and 11 percent as Donovan easily won re-election. In 2011, a point comparable to 2015 in the fouryear election cycle, turnout for some state Supreme Court judgeships in Manhattan, Brooklyn in Queens was around 5 percent. Another 2011 race, the hard-fought contest between then-Erie County Executive Chris Collins and challenger Mark Poloncarz, did spur relatively high turnout for an off-cycle election, but the candidates collectively mobilized only slightly more than 4 in 10 voters. That was nearly the same level of voter involvement in Erie County as in last year’s gubernatorial contest, which was notable for its lackluster turnout.
This year’s county executive contest between Poloncarz, now the incumbent, and Assemblyman Ray Walter is unlikely to increase those figures. “It seems that in New York and other states, the approach has been to make it as difficult as possible,” said state Sen. Michael Gianaris, who long has been an advocate of getting more people signed up to vote. “Make registration difficult, make voting difficult, and we get what we deserve when you see how few people are turning out to vote.”
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n an individual level, some say, voting doesn’t actually make much sense. The right to vote is a foundation of representative democracy, giving citizens a say in who governs them and the policies put in place. But while anyone voting for a candidate presumably wants that candidate to win, political scientists note that a single voter has virtually no chance of determining the outcome. The reason? Elections are rarely if ever decided by one vote. Whether or not you show up, the outcome is the same. That makes the choice to cast a ballot irrational, according to the so-called paradox of voting theory.
VOTER TURNOUT: U.S. AND THE WORLD
15
(% OF VOTING AGE POPULATION) 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20%
cit yandstateny.com
Switzerland (2011)
Chile (2013)
Japan (2014)
United States (2012)
Slovenia (2014)
Canada (2011)
Poland (2010)
Estonia (215)
Luxembourg (2013)*
Portugal (2011)
Slovakia (2012)
Czech Republic (2013)
U.K. (2010)
Spain (2011)
Hungary (2014)
Ireland (2011)
Mexico (2012)*
Germany (2013)
Italy (2013)
Austria (2013)
Netherlands (2012)
France (2012)
Greece (2015)*
Finland (2015)
Israel (2015)
Norway (2013)
Iceland (2013)
New Zealand (2014)
* National law makes voting compulsory. Source: Pew Research Center calculations
South Korea (2012)
Australia (2013)*
Denmark (2011)
Sweden (2014)
Turkey (2011)*
Belgium (2014)*
0%
city & state — October 26, 2015
10%