This week, I received texts from Be Counted NYC and the Jewish Voters Action Network. Both urged me to change registration from independent to Democrat in order to have a meaningful vote in this year’s municipal elections. Then I saw a story in the online news site, The City with the headline entitled “To Vote in This Summer’s Primary, Pick Your Party Now.” Meanwhile, I received a text from “Penn” at NYC Votes, a project of the city’s Board of Elections, offering to help me join a party so I could vote. Welcome to life as an independent voter in NYC.
New York is one of only a dozen states and NYC one of only 15% of cities that operate a closed primary system. That means that only Democrats and Republicans get to vote in the primaries. You might not have realized it. That’s by design. Our primary elections are conducted exactly like the general election, in the same public buildings, on the same machines, with the same poll workers and administered by the city with our tax dollars. The only difference is that independents are barred from participating. Not a single elected official in NYC has publicly denounced it.
But it’s not enough that independents are disenfranchised, we’re targeted for conversion before the Feb. 14 deadline to change voter registration. When Be Counted tells independents to join the Democratic Party, it’s because they want to use independents to help them reach an outcome that the Democratic primary isn’t providing.
When The City runs a feature on why independents should join a party, and doesn’t interview a single independent on why that’s a problem, they’re telling independents we don’t matter. And when the Jewish Voters Action Network, whose fight against antisemitic elected officials I support, tells me to join a party, they’re asking me to trade my political values for my religious identity. Our government shouldn’t put any citizen in the position of having to make that choice.
NYC independents have widely divergent views but our choice to be independent is as significant as any Democrat’s choice to be a Democrat. It’s a statement of personal values and deserves respect. What’s so outrageous is not just that independents like me can’t vote in elections we pay for, but that our very existence is challenged and disrespected by our city’s political establishment at every turn.
Imagine if Be Counted or Jewish Voters Action Network targeted Democrats on Staten Island to change their voter registration to Republican to affect a race. Imagine if the NYC Board of Elections started targeting Republicans to change their voter registration because “Republicans can’t win.” Imagine if the press covered all of that without bothering to even question it.
All this is happening, because two fundamental truths have emerged in our city’s politics. The first is that the independent voter share of the electorate has exploded. Today there are approximately 1.1 million independents in NYC. That adds up to 1 in 5 voters. That number has increased every year. It’s also twice the number of registered Republicans.
The second is that the Democratic Party primary is the only election that matters. Look at mayoral races. Eric Adams came out of a competitive Democratic Party primary in 2021 without serious competition in the general and garnered 67% of the vote. Bill de Blasio received 66% of the vote in the 2017 general election even as his popularity plummeted. Down ballot races are even worse. Of the 18 judicial races appearing on ballots last November, 14 of them were uncontested.
Around the country, from Pennsylvania to Portland, cities and states are debating how to establish equal rights for independents and passing reforms. In our city and state, where calls for equality and democracy are part of everyday conversation, the silence is deafening.
The irony is that trying to convert independents into Democrats doesn’t work. A recent report on New York independent voters by Common Cause found that 80% of independents know they can’t vote in primaries and still they don’t want to join a party. Respect that. The same report found 90% of independent voters would vote in primaries if they could. Let us. Open up the primaries and let all voters vote.
Gruber is the senior vice president at Open Primaries, an election reform organization. He is the co-author of “Let All Voters Vote: Independents and the Expansion of Voting Rights in the United States.”