News Clips

“I think it’s really unfortunate the legislature was unable to address the campaign finance issues that are so apparent in our state,” said Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a good government group. “Even while striving for public financing of elections, there’s nothing that stops you from improving the campaign finance system, bit by bit.”

Still, proponents like Lerner said a ranked-choice system helps to ensure that the winner of an election has the most support among the broadest number of people.

Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York and founder of the Let NY Vote coalition, agreed that the new northeast Queens sites are “good news.” Still, the advocate is far from satisfied with the BOE’s overall job on rolling out early voting in the borough at large.

“Early voting is going to make a significant difference for countless numbers of New Yorkers by making polling places so much more accessible and allow voters to determine when it is most convenient for them,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York.

Lawmakers and advocates on Thursday rallied at the Capitol for a bill that would automatically register people to vote in New York — a measure supporters say is needed to fully engage the public in the political process. The proposal would work like this: Anytime a potential voter interacts with state government through actions like submitting an application for driver's licenses or a fishing permit, they would be automatically registered to vote. They would have to affirmatively opt out of being registered. "It's an automatic transfer of information the government already has about you," said Susan Lerner, executive director, Common Cause.

“The Boards of Elections (BOE) across the state are setting up voters to fail in November by trying to sabotage early voting,” said Common Cause Executive Director Susan Lerner. “New Yorkers need access to voting centers in non-traditional locations, close to transportation, county-wide, and including local and state facilities. We’ve fought too hard to let New York vote, we’re not about the back down now.”