Pros and Cons to NYC’s Early Voter Registration Deadline

Ken Biberaj

* New York City is home to many registered Democratic voters, but it also contains its fair share of independent voters. And if they want to cast a vote in next year’s primary elections in the city, they have to register with a party today. Ken Biberaj, a City Council candidate in Manhattan, has been reminding potential voters of the deadline. “There’s a lot of folks who in my opinion, and I have talked to, who have voted in general elections, but because there wasn’t a competitive council race or Assembly race, they’ve just voted in the general election,” Biberaj said. “Everyone’s waking up and realizing that in 2013 it’s a new mayor, a new council. So many folks I’d talked to were planning on participating and didn’t realize the deadline was coming up.” The election laws are set up to prevent people in one party or another from easily switching sides for the primary to sabotage the opposing party, by purposefully voting for a weaker candidate. “Political parties want to prevent party raiding, people from other parties joining up at the last minute,” said Jerry Goldfeder, an election lawyer. “Generally speaking, it’s extremely rare that somebody would want to change parties. There aren’t that many people who fall into that category.”