civic-call-to-vote-in-municipal-elections-and-assert-the-rights-of-votersCivic call to vote in municipal elections and assert the rights of voters

After several days in which New Yorkers had the opportunity to exercise their right to vote in advance, this Tuesday, November 7, the electoral process will culminate to elect the 51 members of the New York City Council, as will delegates to the Judicial Convention, county committees and district leaders.

Additionally, Big Apple voters will have to respond to two questions about eliminating the special constitutional debt limitation for small school districts, which would make them eligible to have the same debt limit as other school districts, and expanding excluding sewer project debt from the debt limit, which would allow counties, cities and towns to continue for 10 more years.

And in the midst of the electoral fervor, the City’s Civic Participation Commission and the Campaign Finance Board (CFB) called on registered voters to go out and vote to join the democratic process of the five boroughs, and highlighted the work they have been doing in immigrant communities, educating and promoting civic engagement, through campaigns and materials in languages ​​such as Spanish.

“Voters have the right to exercise their vote and must remember that if they work and are far from their polling stations, they have the right to request three hours to do so, it is the law, period. You can go in your pajamas, no one is going to judge you, but please go out and vote,” said Kathleen Daniel, director of Democracy, of the City Civic Participation Commission (CCA), during a meeting with ethnic media.

The official also recalled that even those who have been imprisoned for non-serious crimes or those who have a police record, can exercise their right to vote and highlighted that voters in the Big Apple have the right to request the language in which they want to vote and demand services. of translation.

“If their rights are not guaranteed, they can file a complaint, because the vote must be protected,” said the civic leader, adding that the CEC will provide interpretation services in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Cantonese, Mandarin), French, Haitian Creole, Italian, Korean, Polish, Russian, Urdu and Yiddish at certain voting centers.

Another announcement that the official wanted to highlight is that the CEC recently launched a new cycle called The People’s Money, the annual participatory budgeting process of the city of New York, which will allow until December 19 November, all New York City residents, regardless of immigration status, can submit ideas on how to spend part of the city budget on projects to address the needs of their communities.

Tim Hunter, Press Secretary of the CFB, Kathleen Daniel, Director of Democracy of the City Commission on Civic Participation (CCA), Allie Swatek, Director of Policy and Research, of the CFB and Sarah Sayeed, President of the CEC. Photo Edwin Martinez

Allie Swatek, Director of Policy and Research at the CFB, insisted that the Big Apple has made progress in promoting access to support materials so that voters who do not speak English can make their vote count and not be left behind in the processes. electoral.

“We focus a lot on the inclusion of those people who have limited English proficiency to be able to involve them more in the voting process, in a holistic way,” said the official, who added that there are many materials that are translated and that it is important vote because the decisions made at the polls affect all New Yorkers.

It is estimated that around 170 languages ​​are spoken in the Big Apple and that at least 1.5 million residents speak a language other than English, making translation work an essential way to add them to the democratic process.

By Scribe