New York State Senate
Democratic Conference
New York’s Broken Democracy:Senate Democrats Fight to Fix It.
Voting Reform Page 1
Early Voting
Early voting constitutes practices that permit voters to cast ballots without excuse prior to Election Day. The practice has more than quadrupled since the early 1990s, increasing from 7% of all votes in 1992 to over 30% in 2012.
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In 37 states (including 3 that mail ballots to all voters) and the District of Columbia, any qualified voter may cast a ballot in person during a designated period prior to Election Day, with no excuse or justification required. In the 2016 Presidential General Election, more than 47 million voters cast ballots before Election Day. Despite this fact, New York remains one of only 13 states that has failed to implement early voting, leading more conservative states to justify their recent attempts to suppress the vote by comparing themselves favorably to the historically progressive Empire State. As North Carolina defending its passage of the most sweeping voting restrictions in the country in 2013, its attorney defended the state against court challenges by invoking
New York. “
The state of New York has no early voting as opposed to North Carolina th
at has ten days of early voting,” North Carolina’s attorney observed “…[t]
he state of New York has no same-day registration. The state of New York has no out-of-precinct voting. The state of New York has no pre-
registration.”
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Indeed, in a 2015 analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, New York ranked 44
th
among the 50 states, just above South Carolina and Mississippi, with regard to ballot accessibility.
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States That Allow Early Voting
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1
Burden, B., Canon, D., Mayer, K. and Moynihan, D. “Election Laws, Mobilization, and Turnout: The Unanticipated
Consequences of Election Reform
.” American Journal of Po
litical Science
. Vol. 58, No. 1 (January 2014), pp. 95-109.
2
Berman, A. “27 Percent of New York’s Registered Voters Won’t Be Able to Vote in the State’s Primary:
New York is the fourth-
bluest state in the country, but has some of the worst voting laws.”
The Nation
. 4/18/2016. Available at https://www.thenation.com/article/three-million-registered-voters-wont-be-able-to-vote-in-new-yorks-primary/
3
Harmon, L. et al. “The Health of State Democracies.” Center for American Progress Action Fund. Available at T
he Health of State Democracies.
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Source data from National Conference of State Legislatures (NCLS).
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