NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — By all accounts, the last statewide election in New York was a mess.
Slow counting, voting machines that crash, the head of the elections department tossed out.
“It has been too hard to vote here in New York,” New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer said at a City Hall rally for automatic voter registration, “New York City hasn’t just fallen behind, folks, we’re at the bottom of the pack.”
Now reforms are underway, among them pushing for allowing people to register automatically when they go to the DMV or Department of Health.
“Through that single interaction, you should be automatically registered to vote,” said Sean Macalvey, who runs a group to make registration easier, like it is in 15 other states, “Automatic voting registration could bring 1.5 million voters into the fold.”
Stringer says many of those potential voters are disenfranchised minority voters.