Why is turnout so low in NYC?

[Pres Mike]

In 2020, only 3 million NYC residents voted, out of 8 million. Thats 37.5%

The state as a whole has a 70% turnout rate. The national turnout rate was 67%

Its even worst for mayor elections. Only 15% voted in 2015! 21% in 2021!

This seems odd to me. Anyone know why?

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Turnout in big cities is relatively low across the board. It's not just a NYC-specific thing.

I don't know the exact reason why. Maybe it's because living in a big city leads to inertia? IDK. Also, cities usually have higher rates of young people and immigrants, and both groups generally have low voter turnout rates.

[ProgressiveModerate]

As someone from the city, a few reasons:

-NY is not a competitive state and NYC generally isn't a competitive region, so there really isn't much money spent on trying to get NYCers to show up. There's not really a reason Dems need to spend money to rack bigger margins out of the Bronx at this point, and Rs just aren't seen as competitive statewide in NY.

-NYC has a ton of first- and second-generation immigrants, many of whom don't speak English well if at all and are overall very disconnected from American culture and politics. Some of the lowest turnout parts of the city are places like Corona, Flushing, Bensonhurst, and Sunset Park who have a lot of these types

-Liberal whites in places like Manhattan and Brooklyn don't turn out at the same rate as many other cities because again of lack of investment and many being disaffected progressives. From my experience, NYC has a disproportionately high concentration of disaffected progressive types compared to other cities.

-Compared to most US cities, NYC has a very high share of low propensity "relatively poor" communities. This in part has to do with the way the city boundaries are including all of the Bronx but none of Westchester even though as soon as you cross the County line income goes up big time, but a lot of it just has to do with NYC's history of immigrants and such

Overall biggest thing is that NYC just has very little political investment.

[mileslunn]

New York City has 37% foreign born so I suspect while NYC somewhat lower as 43% of state's population lives in city and with a much higher foreign born population, the number who are actually eligible to vote is probably somewhat lower than rest of state as some of those would not be US citizens thus ineligible to vote.

[Pres Mike]

Turnout in big cities is relatively low across the board. It's not just a NYC-specific thing.

I don't know the exact reason why. Maybe it's because living in a big city leads to inertia? IDK. Also, cities usually have higher rates of young people and immigrants, and both groups generally have low voter turnout rates.

As someone from the city, a few reasons:

-NY is not a competitive state and NYC generally isn't a competitive region, so there really isn't much money spent on trying to get NYCers to show up. There's not really a reason Dems need to spend money to rack bigger margins out of the Bronx at this point, and Rs just aren't seen as competitive statewide in NY.

-NYC has a ton of first- and second-generation immigrants, many of whom don't speak English well if at all and are overall very disconnected from American culture and politics. Some of the lowest turnout parts of the city are places like Corona, Flushing, Bensonhurst, and Sunset Park who have a lot of these types

-Liberal whites in places like Manhattan and Brooklyn don't turn out at the same rate as many other cities because again of lack of investment and many being disaffected progressives. From my experience, NYC has a disproportionately high concentration of disaffected progressive types compared to other cities.

-Compared to most US cities, NYC has a very high share of low propensity "relatively poor" communities. This in part has to do with the way the city boundaries are including all of the Bronx but none of Westchester even though as soon as you cross the County line income goes up big time, but a lot of it just has to do with NYC's history of immigrants and such

Overall biggest thing is that NYC just has very little political investment.

New York City has 37% foreign born so I suspect while NYC somewhat lower as 43% of state's population lives in city and with a much higher foreign born population, the number who are actually eligible to vote is probably somewhat lower than rest of state as some of those would not be US citizens thus ineligible to vote.

Looking back at previous elections, 1993 had 1.8 million people vote. Elections in the 1950s and 1960s had 2 million. 1965 had 2.5 million people vote

Turnout has decreased. Did New York City just become younger and more immigrant based?

[ottermax]

Something to also consider is that voting in New York is particularly difficult.

Registration deadlines are very early, voting by mail is not automatic like other states (and practically was non-existent before 2020), and the bureaucracy is dispiriting. I think things have changed a bit since I lived there but I remember that to change my voting location to match my new address (which people move A LOT in NYC compared to other places) I had to PHYSICALLY go to a borough office to update my address (I could also mail a form but I think I was too close to the voting day) and of course that office was only open at absurd hours with insane wait times.

I know there have been some reforms but just imagine what it might be like for everyday New Yorkers to try to vote if an election forum user runs into this much frustration.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Looking back at previous elections, 1993 had 1.8 million people vote. Elections in the 1950s and 1960s had 2 million. 1965 had 2.5 million people vote

Turnout has decreased. Did New York City just become younger and more immigrant based?

Yes, since the '70s and '80s, NYC has received a ton of immigrants.

Also, gentrification has brought in lots of young people from all over the country (and the world) in the last 15 or so years.

[Pres Mike]

Looking back at previous elections, 1993 had 1.8 million people vote. Elections in the 1950s and 1960s had 2 million. 1965 had 2.5 million people vote

Turnout has decreased. Did New York City just become younger and more immigrant based?

Yes, since the '70s and '80s, NYC has received a ton of immigrants.

Also, gentrification has brought in lots of young people from all over the country (and the world) in the last 15 or so years.

I did some rough math

New York state had a voter turnout rate of 69.7%

New York City had a voter turnout rate of 35%

New York City is roughly 35% of the state's population

That must mean the voter turnout in New York state outside New York City is 88% wtf

Thats a huge difference!

[pikachu]

In 2020, only 3 million NYC residents voted, out of 8 million. Thats 37.5%

The state as a whole has a 70% turnout rate. The national turnout rate was 67%

Its even worst for mayor elections. Only 15% voted in 2015! 21% in 2021!

This seems odd to me. Anyone know why?

Feel like I shouldn’t need to explain this on an elections forum, but you’re calculating turnout wrong by using total population, which includes non-elegible voters such as non-citizens and children. As is well-known, NYC has many of the former. The actual turnout rate in 2020 was 62%, which is still below the national average of 67% and can again probably be explained by the large immigrant population which has lower voter turnout everywhere in the US for a variety of reasons.

[mileslunn]

US has had higher immigration and while not quite as high as turn of century when Ellis Island opened, it is higher than past.  Only about half of immigrants are US citizens so if 37% foreign born that means around 18% are not citizens thus cannot vote.  Now only caveat is how are Puerto Ricans counted as they may count them as foreigners even though they are US citizens and automatically eligible to vote. 
Also urban areas tend to be lower than rural due to age as amongst under 18 population, a much higher percentage live in urban or suburban areas than population as a whole.  Rural areas are much older so not only higher percentage are eligible, higher percentage also come from boomer generation which is generation with highest turnout (silent generation actually lower). 

UK unlike US does constituencies by eligible voters not total population so London has fewer seats than population says it should due to fact has more under 18 and more non-citizens (although in UK, Irish and Commonwealth citizens can vote but other foreign nationalities cannot and many immigrants from commonwealth although EU ones who came before Brexit would be ineligible to vote).

In Canada saw same as in Ontario, Liberals only got 4.3% more in popular vote than Tories yet got more than double the seat count (77 vs. 37) and big reason is lower percentage of population in Greater Toronto Area where Liberals dominate voted while higher percentage in rural did.

[RINO Tom]

I think an underrated answer is that there are FAR more Republican-leaning people in places like Chicago and New York City than people realize, and a lot of these people frankly don't feel their votes count and often do not bother.  Just anecdotally, I knew a lot of people who lived in our old building in the Gold Coast who definitely leaned right but literally never bothered voting.  Not condoning that, just reporting.

[pikachu]

I think an underrated answer is that there are FAR more Republican-leaning people in places like Chicago and New York City than people realize, and a lot of these people frankly don't feel their votes count and often do not bother.  Just anecdotally, I knew a lot of people who lived in our old building in the Gold Coast who definitely leaned right but literally never bothered voting.  Not condoning that, just reporting.

Eh, not that I doubt those people exist, but if you believe 538, "it's pointless b/c my side will lose anyway" ranks as a low reason for not turning out, which tracks w/ what you'd expect from partisan and relatively high-info people.

(There's prob also something to be said about most Trump voters thinking that the 2020 election was rigged, but still choosing to vote in 2024 anyway - if they can rationalize voting despite that, I'm sure the vast majority of urban conservatives can do it also lol.)