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Defending the Electoral College and the Constitution since 2009
New York City’s municipal elections will be held on Tuesday, November 4, 2025. While early voting numbers are up due to the polarizing nature of the mayoral race, low turnout is always a concern. Like many major U.S. cities, NYC struggles with chronically low voter participation, but there’s a ballot proposal that could resolve that problem.
Ballot Proposal 6 would align city and federal election years, potentially boosting voter turnout. Research shows that a significant majority of registered voters tend to stay home during off-cycle elections. On-cycle November elections generally double local voter turnout.
During the 2024 presidential election, 60 percent of eligible New Yorkers voted. For comparison, 23.3 percent of eligible voters voted in the 2021 municipal elections, while 30-40 percent of eligible voters are expected to vote in the 2025 municipal elections. While this represents an increase from the 2021 municipal elections, it remains significantly lower than the 2024 presidential election.
New York City adopted ranked-choice voting back in 2019, and so far, it hasn’t done much to increase voter participation. Election reforms like ranked-choice voting are often sold as solutions to low voter participation but usually end up making the problem worse by complicating the process and discouraging voting.
It only makes sense to move municipal elections to align with federal election dates. Low-turnout elections empower special interest groups. In NYC, those include the United Federation of Teachers and Service Employees International Union, which disproportionately influence outcomes by mobilizing their members. Off-cycle elections benefit insiders and make elections less representative.
Aligning local election cycles with federal election cycles is one of the best election reforms. It all but guarantees increased turnout, and it only changes the date of the election—it doesn’t experiment with the entire election system or complicate the process for voters and administrators.
Unlike election reforms like ranked-choice voting, jungle primaries, or STAR voting, aligning election days actually makes elections easier and more representative. No ballots are eliminated, audits remain easy to conduct, and voters aren’t disenfranchised.