Cuomo Punts on Voting Reform Measures Until After State Budget

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo touted his ability to work with State Senate Republicans on Tuesday, saying he’s been more successful than any governor in the past 50 years.

“I work with moderate Republicans in the Senate every day,” said Cuomo, “and I'm working with them now.”

But not on everything. For the second year in a row, Cuomo’s executive budget proposal included electoral reform measures that Senate Republicans traditionally oppose like early voting, same-day and automatic voter registration. Cuomo called the package his “Democracy Project.”

While the Assembly included the measures in their budget, the Senate did not. With the April 1 budget deadline looming, advocates have been calling on Cuomo to use his leverage to make this the year that New York State modernizes elections.

But when WNYC asked whether he could persuade Senate Republicans to include these reform measures in the budget, Cuomo all but threw in the towel.

“We're going to try like heck,” said Cuomo, “it's not necessarily a budget discussion...many of the democracy issues you talk about we’re going to take up after the budget.”

Good government groups pushing voting reform pointed to New York State’s poor voter turnout — 41st in the nation — as a sign that state leaders need to act now.

“It's not enough to ‘try like heck,’” said Susan Lerner of Common Cause. “New Yorkers deserve the same rights as voters in Alaska and Vermont. We need voting reform now, and that means including funding in the 2017 budget to ensure that the next election cycle is an example for the nation, not a national embarrassment."