New York has the worst voting system in the country

Do you want to change games? If you do not save the change months in advance, you have no luck: no main vote for you. (Even the president's daughter has broken that rule). In addition to this, the state does not offer registration the same day.

A frustrating aspect of the situation in New York is that state-level politicians have been constantly criticizing ideas such as early voting, and then pushing these proposals out of the state budget a few months later. later. And there has been little effort to change some of the state's most confusing voting tips. New York is the only state to hold its federal and state primaries on different days, costing millions for an unnecessary additional polling day. (That's why there's no shame if you think about yourself: "Wait, New York is organizing a primary today?" I thought it had already happened. "

All of this comes with a disconcerting degree of maladministration. Last year, the Justice Department decried the state for its inability to comply with federal laws to facilitate voter registration in the Department of Motor Vehicles. During the 2016 presidential primary, the nonpartisan helpline for election protection received more appeals from New Yorkers than states with notoriously restrictive systems like Texas and Georgia because late opening of offices, malfunctions and party registration errors.

Albany politicians who seek to protect their headquarters have little incentive to change these old-fashioned rules. And the State Election Council has been mired for years (unlike the Washington Federal Election Commission). This dysfunction has repercussions beyond the borders of the state: as long as the New York voting system is such a waste, states like Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin will use it as a point of reference to justify their own faulty systems. In fact, they already have.

But perhaps, with a strengthened electorate and growing momentum for reform of our electoral systems, all of this could change. Here is what needs to be done.

This year, we have already seen a wave of states adopt a reform that the Brennan Center launched more than a decade ago: automatic voter registration. This is a deceptively simple change where the information you provide in government offices, such as the DMV, is automatically used to create or update your voter registration if you have the right to vote. You can always choose to unsubscribe.

Since Oregon became the first state to implement the AVR in 2016, registration rates have quadrupled in DMV offices.

AVR is secure. This is not expensive. And this keeps our listings accurate (unlike the misguided purges, including the 2016 one that has unduly suppressed more than 200,000 New York voters list names). It is also crucial at a time when voters are rightly concerned about piracy and interference in our elections.