New York Enters the 21st Century as Early Voting Comes to the State
By Michael Kochler
After years of Republican obstruction in the State Senate the new Democratic majority quickly joined their counterparts in the Assembly and passed a series of bills that overhaul New York’s outdated election laws.
A pillar of Sentor James Skoufis’ election campaign, the new laws bring early voting to the Empire State along with a host of other measures designed to makevoting easier, thus increasing New York’s historically low election day turnout.New York typically has among the lowest voter participation rates in the nation.
New Democratic Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins swiftly brought the badly needed and long overdue legislation to the Senate floor to begin just her second week of leadership. Besides early voting the bills consolidate New York’sstate and federal primaries; provide for preregistration of 16- and 17-year-olds and voting by mail; and sharply limits the influence of money in elections through L.L.C.s. Said Senator Stewart-Cousins, “We should not fear making it easier for those who are eligible to vote, to vote,” adding, “We should not fear restricting theflow of money into our electoral system.”
Another of Senator Skoufis’ promises was that the so-called L.L.C. loophole would be closed. Under the old statute corporations could spend almost unlimited amounts of money on election races through multiple limited liability companies (L.L.C.s). Typically created by real estate and other powerful interests the true owners of these L.L.C.s are often difficult to identify.
The Assembly, under Democratic leadership, has passed similar bills in past sessions only to see the measures die in the Republican controlled Senate. Republicans regularly sited the expense of making these changes which theymaintained would penalize upstate counties. In truth, consolidating the state’sprimaries will save those counties millions of dollars.