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\n Photo: Christian Monterrosa\/Bloomberg\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
The upcoming vote for mayor<\/a> and other municipal offices is the main event on Election Day, but New Yorkers will also weigh in on a ballot question that, if approved, would start the process of revising the City Charter and the State Constitution to move city elections from the current odd-numbered-year schedule and make them coincide with the year we pick presidential candidates. If that happens, we\u2019ll be joining cities like Baltimore and Los Angeles that recently changed their calendars.<\/p>\n Lots of well-intentioned political leaders, including Governor Kathy Hochul<\/a>, think it\u2019s a great idea. I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not the voter participation that we should have in a country like the United States of America,\u201d Hochul told me recently<\/a>. \u201cIt is a privilege to vote, people shed blood for this right, it was denied to people of color for so many decades \u2014 for a hundred years \u2014 and people won that right. I want more people to exercise. And what happens is in a non-presidential election, non-governor\u2019s election year, there\u2019s not as much attention.\u201d<\/p>\n No argument there; the numbers show that lots more New Yorkers come out to vote for president than for mayor or any other local office. Last year, according to city figures<\/a>, just over 60 percent of the city\u2019s 4.7 million active registered voters turned out in the race between Donald Trump<\/a> and Kamala Harris<\/a>. That\u2019s not far behind the national average<\/a> of around 64 percent, and much higher than the 23 percent who voted in the 2021 general election for New York City offices.<\/p>\n Overall, turnout in city elections has been trending downward for decades<\/a>. Just over 32 percent of voters came out in 2001, and that number dropped in 2005 and 2009, reaching an all-time low of only 20 percent of registered voters casting ballots in the 2013 election, with slight upticks in 2017 and 2021.\u00a0New York\u2019s quarter-century of steadily declining participation is what worries Hochul.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wish everybody would participate all four years, but they don\u2019t, so let\u2019s acknowledge human nature,\u201d she told me. \u201cI also think there\u2019s something that goes on \u2014 it\u2019s election fatigue. People need a break; otherwise, it\u2019s nonstop campaigning all year round for four straight years. And I think when you sometimes have special elections, and vacancies, and the mayor \u2014 we have school-board races at different times \u2014 it\u2019s very confusing to people. So let\u2019s just simplify it and have one big election.\u201d<\/p>\n The main problem with \u201cone big election\u201d is that national political dynamics would inevitably cause vital city issues unique to New York to get swallowed, distorted, or ignored. Take the issue of congestion pricing: After more than a decade of study, struggle, and the creation of an unlikely alliance among environmentalists, transportation advocates, and big businesses, Manhattan below 60th Street is currently the only place in America with a general toll on vehicles.\u00a0It\u2019s safe to assume that most voters in car-dominant swing states like Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan don\u2019t understand or care about New York\u2019s innovative experiment \u2014 and might decide to attack it, as Trump vowed to do before the election (and, thankfully, has thus far been blocked from doing by a federal court<\/a>). New York is better off deciding local issues without a lot of political noise coming from \u2014 or intended for \u2014 other places.<\/p>\n And imagine trying to help voters focus on strictly local matters \u2014 like when to close Rikers Island, how to fund public housing, or whether to boost money for our parks \u2014 while national candidates are spending hundreds of millions of dollars flooding the airwaves with ads for and against sweeping issues like the 900-page Project 2025<\/a> agenda.\u00a0The last thing we need is local candidates bloviating about funding Social Security or supporting NATO instead of telling us how they plan to improve trash pickups, improve the schools, or hire more social workers to help the homeless.<\/p>\n This is not a hypothetical concern. Back in 1894, reformers changed the State Constitution to hold city elections in a so-called \u201coff year\u201d<\/a> specifically so that decisions would be made by people concerned about local issues without the distraction of national issues like war and peace. More than a century later, for some reason, today\u2019s reformers see that intentional narrowing of focus as a bad thing.<\/p>\n \u201cI think New Yorkers can walk and chew gum at the same time,\u201d says Richard Buery, who chaired the Charter Revision Commission supporting a change in the election calendar. \u201cRight now, in the middle of this mayoral election, it\u2019s not like people aren\u2019t talking and dealing with the issues at the federal level and national level,\u201d he told me<\/a>. \u201cI think people can figure out what matters.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m not so sure about that<\/a>. Year after year, researchers and pollsters find that most Americans don\u2019t know<\/a> who represents them in Congress and can\u2019t name the three branches of government.\u00a0A University of Pennsylvania survey recently found that \u201cover half of Americans (51 percent) continue to assert incorrectly that Facebook is required to let all Americans express themselves freely on its platform under the First Amendment.\u201d It\u2019s hard enough trying to inform the public about hyperlocal issues like neighborhood rezonings or installing bike lanes; trying to simultaneously discuss farm subsidies, funding for health research, and other issues would be all but impossible.<\/p>\n If New York is going to be hell-bent on increasing participation, we should be at least a little bit concerned about making sure it\u2019s informed participation.<\/p>\n Beyond the policy questions, New York\u2019s local political scene can only benefit from keeping some distance and difference from the national parties. One reason Republicans in New York have been pushed to the edge of extinction over the last decade \u2014 no GOP candidate has won a statewide office since 2002 \u2014 is that voters associate them with a national party that has become stridently conservative and wholly subservient to President Trump.\u00a0 Curtis Sliwa, the current Republican candidate for mayor, told me<\/a> he can\u2019t win without getting support from disaffected Democrats \u2014 and that his already uphill battle for City Hall would become almost impossible if Trump endorsed him or otherwise got involved in the race.<\/p>\n On the other side of the aisle, city Democrats skew significantly more to the left than the national party \u2014 witness the rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani<\/a> \u2014 and it\u2019s not clear that older, centrist national Democrats, who rallied around Joe Biden even after it was clear that he should retire, have the energy to lead, absorb, or suppress the youth-powered political movement surging through New York.\u00a0Which is one more reason we should make sure city elections remain by and for New Yorkers only.<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Intelligencer\u00a0Newsletter<\/p>\n Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n