While the exact bills have not yet been made public, several individuals familiar with the negotiations provided more details about what they expect to be included. | Getty Images Democrats plan sweeping election reform package next week

ALBANY — Good-government advocates already are praising an election reform package that legislators expect to pass when they return to the Capitol on Monday. The advocates say it's the most-sweeping set of improvements to New York’s voting system in memory.

In an interview on the Capitol Pressroom on Thursday, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) provided an outline of what the package would look like. Bills that are due to pass on Monday will limit the amount of money limited liability companies can give to campaigns, create a system of early voting, combine New York’s federal and state primaries, make it easier for people to vote by affidavit after they move to a new county, and let people pre-register to vote when they turn 16. And constitutional amendments that would need voter approval in 2021 would set New York on the path to allowing voters to register on Election Day and submit their ballots by mail.


“If they follow through on all these things and the voters approve these constitutional amendments, we could be in a position where New York is a leader rather than a laggard,” said Reinvent Albany’s Alex Camarda.

The “laggard” label has widespread acceptance among election reform advocates. That’s due in no small part to the long tradition of having a split Legislature — any proposals that are thought to provide even a slight boost to one party have been dead on arrival for decades. But with complaints about long lines and low turnout intensifying with every election, the Democrats who now dominate the state Senate have spent weeks promising that a revamp would be the first legislation they’d address upon assuming control.

While the exact bills have not yet been made public, several individuals familiar with the negotiations provided more details about what they expect to be included.

Some of them would look like bills that have passed the Assembly or been included in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive budgets in recent years. These include the measure governing LLCs, which can currently be used to give effectively unlimited contributions. Going forward, they’ll be treated as corporations, which means that each LLC can give an aggregate total of $5,000 per year to every candidate combined.

LLCs owned by the same individual are not expected to be aggregated, so a developer who controls 20 of them could still find a way to give a candidate a $100,000 donation. But that’s significantly less than the seven-figure amounts that have occasionally popped up in the past.

Early voting would also be similar to a bill that has passed the Assembly, with a 10-day window allowing people to cast ballots before Election Day. Counties would be required to have between one and seven polling sites open, depending on their population.

The congressional, state and local primaries would be consolidated on the fourth Tuesday in June, as has been recommended by Democrats since a federal court moved federal elections in 2012. That would save county governments about $25 million per election and potentially improve turnout, though Republicans have complained that the early date would wreak havoc on the legislative calendar and make petition-gathering a miserable experience in parts of the state where the weather isn’t always pleasant in March.

That might go into effect immediately, moving forward the date of elections such as the Democratic primary for this year’s public advocate race in New York City.

The amendments would simply remove constitutional language that limits the types of election law changes legislators can pass. For example, the constitution says that the only people who can vote without physically showing up to poll sites are those who will “be absent from the county of their residence” or cannot travel due to “illness or physical disability.”

With those restrictions removed, future laws could simply let people submit an absentee ballot if they have a busy day at work. Additionally, legislators would be allowed to create a system like the one in place in states such as Colorado, where voters are automatically mailed a ballot.

Most of the other changes have similar precedents in some, or most, other states.

“Early voting? Thirty-seven other states have it, we don’t,” said Senate Elections Chairman Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn). “No-excuse absentee voting? Seventeen other states have it, we don’t.”

And as for holding federal and state primaries on the same day — "49 other states do it, and we don’t,” Myrie said.

Still, the changes can be seen as New York finally entering the 21st century in terms of voting accessibility.

“Those are real victories; I wouldn’t want to downplay them,” said Larry Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice. “I would say, however, that all these things are kind of getting New York caught up with the rest of the country.”

There are numerous other changes that he’d like to see enacted before the year is over, such as a system of public campaign financing and automatic voter registration. Democrats have supported these in the past, and reformers remain hopeful that they will pass before the end of session.

For the moment, though, the advocates are looking forward to Monday’s votes. “Certainly in my 15 years in working in this space, I don’t remember anything close to this,” Norden said.

Republicans have raised concerns about some of these measures in the past. State Sen. Cathy Young (R-Olean), the top Republican on the Elections Committee, said that early voting will “impose a significant unfunded mandate on the counties” without significantly improving things. The June primary is “an invitation to corruption,” she said, because it will place the political season “smack-dab in the middle of session,” causing members to miss votes and deepening the ties between electioneering and decision-making.

“One of our most sacred rights as Americans is to have the right to vote and choose our leaders, and the proposals that the Democrats are putting in raise serious concerns,” Young said. “It shows that they’re tone-deaf to the needs of upstate, and they’re trying to impose their New York City systems on the rest of the state.”

But Democrats believe the changes are popular, and they're likely going to highlight them as proof that they can get things done.

“It’s a compliment to [Majority Leader] Andrea Stewart-Cousins for putting trust in the people the people have sent up [to Albany],” said Myrie, a freshman who will be tasked with helping to shepherd through the major provisions in his second day in Albany. “As a person of color … it takes on added significance for me, because not just this country, but this state, has a pretty scandalous history of denying people their rights.”