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De Blasio Calls For NY State Electoral Reform

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says it wasn't only bad weather that caused anemic turnouts on Election Day.  He says his second administration will fight to change election laws in Albany.

“We are one of only thirteen states that doesn’t allow early voting.  Early voting is the greatest preventative measure to make sure people aren’t excluded because of the weather or because work went late, or the subway broke down.  If you don’t have early voting you’re implicitly allowing the disenfranchisement of a huge number of voters.”

De Blasio says same day voter registration will be a part of his agenda. 

“If you don’t have same day registration you’re keeping a vast number of people out of the process.  There’s a million people in this city who are eligible but not registered and two million people in the state that are eligible but not registered because the political class has attempted to exclude them consistently for decades.  This is a democratic problem and a republican problem.”

Election Day voter turnout in New York City was near record lows.