An estimated 15,000 New Yorkers recently signed up or re-enrolled as Democrats to vote in that party’s primaries for mayor in June – including Republicans who changed positions, the Post found.
In a Democratic-dominated city, that party’s primaries on June 22 are likely to determine who will be the next mayor.
The Post recently reported that a group called Be Counted NYC undertook a multimillion-dollar campaign to persuade more moderate, conservative and Republican registered independents to re-enroll as Democrats to have more voice in the mayoral election, arguing that a candidate running for the Republican line would stand no chance. in general elections.
The Be Counted NYC group has bombed non-affiliated, registered Republican voters with correspondence, text messages and phone calls since December to re-enroll as Democrats. The deadline for doing this is February 14th.
According to the city’s Electoral Council, 7,156 New York City voters changed their allegiance to the Democratic Party between January 2 and February 4 of this year.
The count shows that 2,426 registered Republicans and 4,730 registered voters as “blank” or not affiliated with a re-enrolled party as Democrats.
But the Be Counted NYC group says there is a delay in the BOE count and says that, in the end, more than 15,000 will have changed or signed up as Democrats.
A few thousand votes – or even a few hundred – can affect the outcome of a close contest.
In a race for Congress in the interior of the state, Republican Claudia Tenney has just been certified as a winner over Democratic Representative Anthony Brindisi by just 109 votes out of 311,000 votes cast.
During the last competitive mayoral Democratic primaries won by Bill de Blasio in 2013, 691,801 or 22 percent of the more than 3 million registered Democrats voted.
Be Counted NYC said it provided tens of thousands of voters with prepaid postage envelopes that it encouraged to re-enroll and that the U.S. Postal Service charges daily for postage each time an envelope is returned. Thus, they can track how many forms were sent to the BOE by voters on February 5 – including forms that may not have been received or processed yet by the electoral agency.
They are also tracking online voters who have registered or re-registered with the Motor Vehicle Department through their website. He also made follow-up calls to voters to confirm that they re-registered.
“We are seeing tremendous momentum behind our effort to get people to register to vote for Democratic primaries, including a single-day increase last week when thousands of voters returned their voter registration by mail,” he said. Be Counted NYC founder Lisa Blau, a wellness brand financier.
Blau’s husband is Jeff Blau, CEO of Related Companies, one of the largest developers in the city.
Republican leaders have condemned the effort to persuade their voters to change parties, saying that a bipartisan system is vital to the city’s future.
“Don’t give in to those who say Republicans can’t win in New York,” former Republican Party governor George Pataki said recently on WABC radio’s Curtis Sliwa program.
Pataki noted that two of the last three mayors – Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg – won as Republicans in the overwhelmingly Democratic Big Apple.
“Without a bipartisan system, we will have Blasio as mayors forever. You have to have that check and balance, ”said Pataki.
Pataki said the party-switching effort is probably well-intentioned, but misplaced because the Democratic Party has shifted too far to the left in the city to influence a few thousand party changers, who will not have much influence in the primaries.
“They are anti-police, they are higher pro-taxes,” said the former governor.
Pataki said it was a “difficult” and “very steep” climb for Republican Party candidates, but not impossible.
“How did Bloomberg win? How Rudy Giuliani won. How I won, ”he said.
There are currently 3,748,026 registered Democrats, 568,732 registered Republicans and 1,075,189 “blank” or non-affiliated voters in New York City, according to the state Elections Council.