Testimony of Paul Seamus Ryan, Executive Director of the New York City Campaign Finance Board to the New York City Council Committee on Governmental Operations Committee

12/04/2024

Thank you, Chair Restler and Committee on Governmental Operations, State & Federal Legislation members, for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am Paul Seamus Ryan, Executive Director of the New York City Campaign Finance Board (CFB).

The CFB is an independent, nonpartisan City agency dedicated to strengthening local democracy. The CFB combats the influence of big money in politics by amplifying the power of small-dollar contributions from everyday New Yorkers through our matching funds program, which serves as a model nationwide. We work to eliminate barriers to participation by equipping New Yorkers with the information and resources they need to vote and run for office. Through the NYC Votes initiative, the CFB engages directly with voters and provides resources to make voting more accessible. Our mission is to foster a democracy that is open, transparent, and equitable.

I am honored to deliver testimony alongside the Board of Elections at this hearing focused on election preparedness for 2025. This hearing provides us with the opportunity to highlight our new agency-wide Strategic Plan and other initiatives we are developing for next year’s elections and beyond. Along with other CFB colleagues, I am joined today by Amanda Melillo, who I am excited to share has been promoted to become the agency’s First Deputy Executive Director. In this role, Amanda leads our new Strategy, Products & Innovation Division, which includes implementing our new strategic plan and, more generally, turning vision into reality as we build the necessary tools to ensure the CFB's successful future.

Our new 7-year strategic plan will take us through the 2029 election, which we expect to be the biggest in CFB history. Under our strategic plan timeline, we’ll work hard to improve systems, programs, and processes between now and 2029 so that administration of the public matching funds program and voter education initiatives go as smoothly as possible—and have the greatest possible impact.

In service of our vision, mission, and core values of access, accountability, equity, and transparency, we are reaching for the following North Star Goals by 2030:

• 90% of audits completed within 1 year of election for candidates who do not request and receive extensions, with minimal increased risk;
• 90%+ candidates express high satisfaction with CFB programs and services;
• 90% of voters find our information and materials relevant, helpful, and accessible;
• 10% of eligible NYC donors make a contribution in an election cycle; and
• 90%+ CFB employees express high engagement with employment at the CFB.

Our staff has been hard at work developing concrete shorter-term goals to move us toward these longer-term North Star goals. For example, with respect to auditing, we’ve committed to a benchmark of completing 50% of audits within 1 year of the 2025 election and will be starting post-election audits immediately after the June primary of candidates who are not in the general election.

Before I address each bill under consideration today, I would like to highlight some of our planned initiatives, many of which are already underway for the 2025 election. Our agency is committed to providing comprehensive voter-facing education on the matching funds program to highlight its benefits. New Yorkers should know their support for local candidates can make a real difference in races thanks to the matching funds program’s 8-to-1 match. That means $10 from your neighbor becomes $90 for you to spend on a campaign about the issues that matter. The more everyday New Yorkers decide to run for office, the more choices voters will have in selecting leaders whose priorities align with theirs.

Our outreach and education efforts in 2025 will also focus on ranked choice voting (RCV). As in 2021 and 2023, we look forward to collaborating closely with the Board of Elections and our community partners in all five boroughs to make sure all New Yorkers understand how to vote a ranked choice ballot. Some highlights of our plans include the Voter Guide, printed and digital educational materials, and a targeted multi-media advertising campaign.

The Voter Guide – which is mailed to all registered voters and published online – will include information explaining RCV to voters, as well as a mockup of a sample ballot. This information will be communicated in all 13 mandated languages: Arabic, Bengali, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Korean, French, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Polish, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish and Urdu. We will also have a video voter guide with ASL interpretation and closed captioning available on our website.

Our other 2025 printed materials – which include a standard and large-print fact sheet with a sample RCV ballot – will also be created and distributed in all 13 languages. Our digital materials will be distributed in all mandated languages too, including videos explaining RCV on social media and web channels and explanatory graphics that direct viewers to the information on the NYC Votes website.

A targeted advertising campaign will kick off in April 2025, as most New Yorkers are starting to tune in to the campaign, and run through the Primary Election on June 24th. The campaign will target all New Yorkers, but have particular focus on our priority communities and languages, which I’ll describe in a moment. This campaign will span all digital channels and include out-of-home placements throughout

the City, including but not limited to bus shelters, radio, and subway ads. Advertisements will also be published in community and ethnic media outlets.

Every New Yorker should be able to engage meaningfully in our local democracy. Language access – providing information, services, and systems to enable New Yorkers with limited English language proficiency to effectively navigate voting and elections – is essential to making that vision a reality in 2025. New Yorkers have the right to vote in their language. It’s our job to ensure they can access that right and build a democracy that is truly inclusive of and designed for all language speakers. By dismantling language barriers, we can help ensure that people who speak a language other than English have just as much power at the ballot box as those who speak English comfortably.

Guided by our Charter mandate, the CFB periodically analyzes quantitative and qualitative data to identify communities – both demographic and geographic – that are underrepresented in the electoral process in terms of voter engagement, registration, and participation. In our 2022 Voter Analysis Report, we identified five priority demographics: voters under the age of 30, immigrant voters, voters who primarily speak a language other than English, voters with disabilities, and voters who have been impacted by the criminal legal system. We also identified several priority geographic areas by analyzing United States Census data, voter turnout, and the proportions of our identified priority communities that reside within each neighborhood or census district. The CFB has identified neighborhoods in the South Bronx, South Brooklyn, Northern Queens, and Central Queens as communities in need of targeted voter outreach because of the number of recently naturalized residents or residents that speak languages the CFB has not historically included in voter outreach.

The CFB partners with community-based organizations that serve underrepresented communities, such as the priority demographics previously discussed, to host voter education events across the City. At these events, we’ll educate voters about what RCV is, how RCV works in NYC, and help them practice completing an RCV ballot. We’ll host trainings for hundreds of students, volunteers, and community partners and provide them with the knowledge and resources to educate their own communities about RCV – a “train the trainer” model that multiplies our reach. We’ll also incorporate RCV educational materials, including sample RCV ballots, into our multilingual direct voter outreach efforts, which will reach tens of thousands of New Yorkers in their communities on the street, at community events, street fairs, parades, festivals, and wherever New Yorkers are gathering.

Now, turning to the bills before the Committee today, the first bill I will discuss is Int. 1111-2024, sponsored by Council Member Schulman. This bill proposes recalculating campaign contribution and expenditure limits based on changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) after every General election, rather than every four years as required by current law. This bill would address a situation that arises once every 20 years, when Council members serve two-year terms due to redistricting. Under current law, contribution and expenditure limits were adjusted in early 2022 and will not be adjusted again until early 2026, requiring Council candidates to run under the same limits in 2023 and again in 2025. This bill would require immediate adjustment of Council candidate spending limits for the 2025 elections, but the contribution limits provision would not take effect until 2026.

We do not have a formal position on this bill. We would like to work with the Council to ensure we correctly understand the provisions related to CPI adjustments, so we are best able to implement this legislation if enacted.

The next bill I will discuss is Int. 0565-2024, sponsored by Council Member Brewer, which would require the CFB to create and routinely update guidance on procedures under the New York State Election Law for making certain voter records confidential. The Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence (ENDGBV) would be responsible for distributing this guidance to individuals receiving services at Family Justice Centers. In the past, our Public Affairs division has conducted outreach efforts to partners who serve this community and have promoted our educational materials to domestic violence survivors. We support this bill and welcome the opportunity to formalize these efforts and partner closely with ENDGBV to ensure they deliver our guidance materials to impacted populations.

Next, I would like to discuss Int. 0293-2024, sponsored by Council Member Menin. This bill prohibits sharing, within 60 days of a City election, manipulated media that falsely depicts a local candidate’s speech or actions as genuine, intending to influence election outcomes or harm the candidate’s reputation. The CFB is deeply committed to working alongside the Council to protect the integrity of our local democratic process and uphold public trust. While this bill does not create any mandates on the CFB, I do want to note the unsettled legal landscape surrounding this issue across the country. Nineteen states have enacted legislation seeking to address this issue, and several have been challenged in court on First Amendment grounds, including laws in California, Texas and Minnesota. This statute, as drafted, may face similar constitutional challenges. We would be happy to offer our recommendations to the Council to ensure the strongest, most legally defensible version of the bill is developed.

Res. 0189-2024, sponsored by Council Member Ung, is of great importance to the CFB. The legislation calls on the New York State Legislature to pass an amendment to the New York State Constitution to move New York City elections to even-numbered years. We are thrilled to see this resolution reintroduced in the 2023-2024 Council session. Citizens Union focused an entire 60-page report on the subject in December 2022, which inspired us to recommend this policy change in our 2022 Voter Analysis Report and again in our 2023 Voter Analysis Report.

Under our current election system, even with 82% of New Yorkers registered to vote, only a fraction of New Yorkers turn out to cast ballots in odd-year City elections, with many expressing voter fatigue and election burnout. Shifting local elections to occur alongside state and federal elections would also save taxpayers the $30 million it costs to administer each standalone local primary and general election – even when only 7% of the City shows up to vote. Beyond increasing turnout for local elections that shape our day-to-day lives, consolidating elections would also increase representation among those who participate, especially young voters and voters of color. Research shows this to be true in municipalities across the country that have made similar moves.

Last year, Governor Hochul signed legislation that shifted most county and local elections to even years to limit election fatigue and boost voter turnout. A comparable change for cities, including New York

City, requires a constitutional amendment set in motion by legislation at the state level. The more New Yorkers participate in local elections, the closer we are to a just and representative democracy.

The final pieces of legislation do not create new mandates for the CFB. Still, we would like to express our support for both Int. 0441-2024 and Res. 0322-2024. Both further our mission to engage underrepresented communities while expanding language access across the City.

The CFB appreciates the opportunity to provide testimony and feedback on the bills under consideration by this committee today. We remain dedicated to collaborating with the Council to ensure that the 2025 election is the most open, transparent, and equitable election in City history.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I welcome any questions.