Democrats outnumber Republicans in New York by more than 2 to 1. However, that didn’t guarantee passage of state ballot propositions.
Republicans claimed victory after voters were given five chances to change New York’s constitution. Three out of the five measures failed.
Two of them dealt with voting changes, and were heavily backed by Democrats.
“The only TV ads I saw were those launched by the Conservative Party,” Blair Horner with the New York Public Interest Research Group told Spectrum News. “So if the Democrats were spending money on that, then in any significant way, I don’t know where it went. It may well be that the Democrats were not as enthused about advancing it as they were doing other things.”
It was a failure of messaging. That’s the message leaders are going with.
The first proposal would have made changes to the redistricting process – capping the number of Senators in New York at 63.
The third ballot proposal would have allowed for same-day voter registration. The state currently has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the U.S., despite being one of the most ‘progressive’ on paper.
Ballot Propositions 1, 3, and 4, which all were defeated could mean the process starts over again in 2022.
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