[Editor's note: This guide to today's election ballot questions was originally published on October 22nd. We are resurfacing it today, November 5th, for Election Day. Polls in NYC are open to 9 p.m.; find your polling place here.]
In this year’s general election, some of the biggest decisions facing voters have nothing to do with candidates. After picking a public advocate (and in Queens, a district attorney) voters need to flip over their ballot and vote yes or no on five questions that could change the New York City Charter, the local laws that dictate the rules of our municipal government.
These proposals are a product of the Charter Commission 2019, which includes 15 members representing the mayor, City Council, Public Advocate, Comptroller and each of the borough presidents. There were dozens of meetings where experts and the public gave input on the various proposals. (You can read the exact wording of the questions here.)
Here's a rundown of the questions on the ballot, whether you vote early beginning October 26, or on Election Day: Tuesday, November 5.
Broad City stars Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson even cut a promo for the ballot questions:
Reminder: there is no picking and choosing among the proposals contained in each ballot question. You can only vote yes or no to each individual question. However, you don’t need to vote for all five questions for your votes to count.
Question 1: Elections
The marquee proposal would bring Ranked Choice Voting to all primary and special elections for Mayor, Public Advocate, Comptroller, Borough President, and City Council starting after January 2021. Voters would have the option to rank up to five candidates on their ballot instead of voting for just one person.
It’s a relatively straightforward concept for voters, but it may change how candidates run for office. “You gotta go to all the districts, you gotta talk to everybody, and you gotta have a conversation,” said Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, a proponent of the measure. This means candidates will be forced to talk to people beyond their natural political base because there’s an incentive to be a voter’s second choice, not just their number one.
When votes are counted, if no one candidate wins a majority of the vote, a process to tally the votes using the ranked system begins. It starts by taking the candidate who comes in last place: those ballots are redistributed based on voters’ second choice candidates. Still no majority? Then that process is repeated until there is one candidate with the most votes, or the counting process is exhausted.
Some critics say even with Ranked Choice Voting, the results won’t always produce a majority, just a plurality. But proponents argue the result will still be a candidate who has more support across the electorate.
Another proposal would increase the amount of time before special is held when a vacancy occurs setting a timeframe of 80 days for all city offices. While the final proposal would reform the City Council redistricting process. Every 10 years the city redraws the borders of Council districts based on the results of the latest census. Current law doesn't take into account recent changes to state election law, like moving primary elections to June and adding early voting. This proposal is intended to address that and would adjust the timing so that the process is complete before candidates have to start gathering signatures to get on the ballot.
Question 2: Police Accountability and the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB)
This question is all about increasing the effectiveness of the agency that investigates the public’s complaints against NYPD officers.
“The Board felt very strongly that, as the entity that interacts with the public when the public has an issue with an officer, it was important to make sure that it was strengthened and that people felt confident that when they brought a complaint to the CCRB, it would be dealt with,” Gail Benjamin, Chair of the Charter Commission said on the Brian Lehrer Show.
A yes vote would increase the size of the CCRB from 13 members to 15. It would also give the City Council and Public Advocate more say in the appointments. They are currently controlled by the Mayor, with input from others.
It would also set a minimum budget for the board's headcount equal of 0.6 percent pegged to the NYPD's budget for police officer headcount. For context, under the City’s adopted budget for Fiscal 2020, the NYPD a headcount is budgeted for 36,113 uniformed members, and the CCRB has total of 212 employees. That's a ratio of just over a 0.587 percent.
It also would require more transparency from the Police Commissioner when it comes to police discipline and it would also give more power to the executive director to issue subpoenas and seek witness testimony. In that vein, the ballot measure broadens the CCRB’s current jurisdiction in one specific case: if the proposal passes, the CCRB would be allowed to investigate false statements made by officers during an existing CCRB investigation.
As it stands now, if the CCRB discovers that an officer has lied, the agency can only turn over that information to the NYPD for internal review.
Question 3: Ethics and Governance
This question includes five proposals. The first proposal would increase the amount of time a former elected official or senior administration official has to wait before lobbying the branch of government in which she or he served. Current law requires people to wait a year, this proposal would make it two years. It's a pretty straight forward lobbying reform.
There's also a proposal to make a mayoral office for the director of the Minority and Women Owned Small Business Enterprise program; another proposal that would require the City Council to approve the mayor's appointment for Corporation Counsel (that's the top lawyer for the city); plus two proposals related to the city's Conflicts of Interest Board.
One would prevent COIB employees from participating in local political campaigns, including capping the amount they can donate to $400 or less depending on the office; while another would change the membership of the COIB—taking two of the appointments from the mayor and giving one to the comptroller and the other to the public advocate. The COIB makes determinations about whether city employees and elected officials are abiding by city ethics laws.
There’s a lot going on here, and that's part of the reason why the good government group Citizens Union actually took a position opposing this question saying it includes "controversial items and covers disparate issues."
Question 4: City Budget
This question contains four pretty straightforward proposals. One would put in motion an effort to establish a so-called “rainy day” fund that would allow the city to save money during good economic times to pay for hardships down the road. It would also require changes to state legislation, because New York is required to balance its budget each year, a vestige of the fiscal crisis in the 1970's. Creating and using a rainy day fund is something fiscal watchdogs like the Citizens Budget Commission have long advocated for.
Another proposal would set minimum budgets for the Public Advocate and Borough Presidents. While the CBC does not generally support this, they think the importance of the rainy day fund outweighs their reluctance on other matters.
There are also two other proposals related to the financial information the mayor must give to the council for the budget process, essentially providing that information sooner than it's currently required.
Question 5: Land Use
These two proposals are really just about giving more information and time to the Borough Presidents and the Community Boards to review land use proposals. Some advocates and progressive members of the City Council wanted these changes to go further and to deal with broader issues like comprehensive planning, which as the name suggests, takes a more comprehensive approach to planning and development. But only these relatively innocuous proposals were finalized by the 15 Charter Commission members (read the full details here).
Brigid Bergin is the City Hall and politics reporter for WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter at @brigidbergin.
