New York’s Preregistration Law Goes Into Effect January 1. Counties are not paying attention, but students will.

“As I’m sure you’re aware, New York State has recently passed a law stating that 16- and 17-year-olds are eligible to preregister starting in January of 2020.” After introducing my name and role as an intern at The Civics Center, this statement was how I opened each of my cold calls to representatives at Board of Elections offices of counties all over the state. I spent June through August researching New York counties and contacting a sample pool of three blue (Albany, Tompkins, Westchester), three red (Allegany, Cattaraugus, Wyoming), and two purple (Broome, Cayuga) in various segments of the state. My goal was to find out what these counties had in mind to effectively implement this new preregistration law.

In 2016, New York ranked 41st in the country for voter turnout. The new voting reform legislation, introduced by State Senator David Carlucci, was directly targeted at driving up voter engagement, specifically for the age group deemed to need it the most. Nationally, fewer than half of eligible citizens between the ages of 18 and 24 are estimated to be registered to vote and voter turnout has historically been low among this age group. The Pew Research Center posits that a variety of factors influence low turnout: citizens don’t believe their votes matter nor that voting will influence the outcome of an election; people simply cannot make it to the polls on voting day; and many were never registered to vote in the first place. The new legislation addresses the latter two obstacles. The issue of inconvenience and scheduling will be tackled by allowing early voting. The issue of low rates of voter registration among young people will be mitigated by allowing preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds, who would then be automatically registered by the time they were 18. 

These voter reforms have enormous potential but, as always, implementation will be crucial to determining their effect. For example, if teens don’t know about their new ability to preregister, the impact of that aspect of the legislation will likely be negligible. In order to make sure New York State reaps the benefits of this bill, it must be implemented effectively and consistently on a state-wide basis. That’s where my phone calls to various counties throughout New York came in: I wanted to understand how local election officials were (or were not) publicizing this new law in their communities and creating the structures in which the promise of this new law would be realized.

For each county board of elections office I contacted, I was given the emails of two Democratic and two Republican elected representatives. I emailed each representative asking for specific details on their planned implementation. Of the 36 emails I sent, I received responses from only four of the representatives -- two of which were from the same county.

Albany, a predominantly Democratic county, stated that they “urge” their current 17-year-olds to preregister. They stated that they will begin to encourage their 16-year-olds to preregister in the same way. Further, they explained that volunteers from the League of Women Voters go to high schools in their county, hold voter registration drives, and return the forms to the Board of Elections office.

Representatives from Allegany, a largely Republican county, responded that their county will continue the process of preregistration of 17-year-olds who will be eligible to vote on election day, as they have been doing under current law. When the new law takes effect in 2020, they will change the process to include all 16- and 17-year-olds who send in a registration form. When I asked if they would be tracking the process of preregistration to find out if more teens preregister, they responded that they will not, because they are not required by law to do so.

A Republican representative from largely Democratic Tompkins County stated that they have an annual voter education and registration plan in coordination with school districts. They are also making plans to conduct these efforts in 2020 with 16-year-olds. The Democratic representative to the Board of Elections in Tompkins County reported that they stay in contact with high school teachers at each of their county’s public high schools and provide them with registration materials on a regular basis. Additionally, local schools provide students with an opportunity to preregister and regularly send voter preregistration return forms the students have filled out. They will continue to support these efforts with 16-year-olds.

To summarize, I contacted 36 representatives to county Boards of Election in New York State, and I only heard back from four. In only one county did there seem to be a concerted effort to implement preregistration by educating teens about their new rights. 

For those counties from which I had not received an email reply, I followed up with a phone call to their Board of Elections offices. In most cases, I was able to reach an administrative staff person, who provided me with essentially the same message across offices:  the counties would continue to offer “preregistration” as they had before, but with 16-year-olds now included in that pool. None of these counties had plans to implement a system to enable accurate tracking of preregistration numbers.

Several other states that have passed legislation enabling 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister have coupled the law with implementation directives to ensure that their teen constituents are aware of their new privileges. For example, in Washington State, the Secretary of State’s office is directed to work with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction to ensure students are educated about preregistration and given the opportunity to preregister on designated days. Other states, like Colorado -- which has one of the highest preregistration rates of 16- and 17-year-olds in the country at 31% -- have highly active and well-organized nonprofits like New Era Colorado which focus on youth voter engagement in their state. In Oregon, a relatively high preregistration rate of 29% of 16- and 17-year-olds may be in part due to an “opt-out” initiative through their Department of Motor Vehicles such that anyone applying for their driver’s license is automatically preregistered or registered to vote. 

While we celebrate the preregistration bill that New York enacted and which is set to take effect, we hope that the state will take heed of the evidence at hand: there is currently a dearth of implementation efforts across counties. This will likely result in a low yield of preregistered 16- and 17-year-olds and a missed opportunity for New York. Governor Cuomo would be wise to take a page from states like Washington and Oregon, where laws enabling preregistration have been paired with strong executive action to implement the initiative.

Dori Newman currently is a senior at The Spence School in New York City. She also serves as a full voting member of Community Board 8-Manhattan where she can further delve into the policy issues she cares about, namely, youth engagement, gender equality, and equal rights for all New Yorkers. Spending her summer as an intern for The Civics Center she spoke with government officials on across New York State on preregistration law.