A person votes early within the NYC mayoral major on June 15, 2025.
Photograph by Dean Moses
As President of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, I usually work together with all ranges of presidency and have constructed relationships with many elected officers over my 30-year profession. I’ve noticed each exemplary public servants and others who’ve sadly misplaced their standing.
I’m additionally the face of a disenfranchised voter, one of many 1.1 million voters who’ve chosen to register as “unaffiliated.” In reality, unaffiliated voters make up the second-largest voting bloc in New York Metropolis after registered Democrats.
This upcoming citywide election in November, now we have an opportunity to finish voter disenfranchisement and double down on extra democracy, as most huge cities throughout the nation have already carried out. We’ve got an opportunity to vote for open primaries and usher within the single most vital voter reform in NYC historical past.
We’ll solely get this opportunity if the NYC Constitution Overview Fee, a mayoral-appointed fee that evaluations potential adjustments to the Metropolis’s governing constitution, advances this suggestion to the poll field.
Open primaries will strengthen democracy by permitting the 1.1 million unaffiliated voters to take part within the major course of. We have already got open primaries; they’re referred to as “special elections,” they usually happen when a emptiness in an elected workplace happens previous to an election cycle.
Open primaries can take many kinds, however basically they permit for any registered voter to vote in a major, resulting in the choice of a choose variety of ultimate candidates advancing to the overall election, no matter get together affiliation. Open primaries won’t solely result in larger voter participation total, however common elections in NYC will now truly matter as a result of they are going to be aggressive.
It’s price noting that 24 of the 30 largest cities in America have open primaries. And the outcomes have been distinctive, growing voter participation and increasing selections. Over time, open primaries also can result in encouraging extra folks to step up and run for workplace, provided that the taking part in subject can be extra equal and never managed by get together techniques and insiders.
In reality, mixed with ranked selection voting and public financing of campaigns, NYC has the potential to as soon as once more lead the nation in increasing democracy and voter rights.
In its latest interim report, the Fee declined to decide to advancing open primaries, citing unrelated considerations about ranked selection voting and contentious election cycles. This stance is questionable given that almost all public testimony on the many hearings favored open primaries.
Whereas the Fee did decide to housing and land use suggestions, it stays unclear why essentially the most requested reform could also be excluded.
As we see an unraveling of democratic establishments on a nationwide stage, now’s the time to behave decisively in protection of extra democracy, not much less. I urge the Constitution Fee to incorporate the open primaries suggestion on the poll this 12 months.
Randy Friends is President & CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, the biggest Chamber of Commerce in New York State. He’s additionally a registered “unaffiliated” voter.
