April 15, 2025

New York City Independent Voters Come Out Big To Testify for Primary Reform Before the Charter Revision Commission

Independent voters turned out in Staten Island on April 9th to urge that the NYC Charter Revision Commission (CRC) put opening the primaries on the November ballot. Jeremy Gruber, Vice President of Open Primaries pointed out that NYC is “…so far behind on this issue. 36 states and 85% of cities like Los Angeles and Chicago already have open elections. It’s the standard way cities run their elections in this country.”

Danny Battista, a Staten Island resident, spoke of the experience of having people campaigning during the primary literally turn away when he said he was an independent.

Julia Hemsworth spoke passionately about receiving mail urging her to reregister and shared that she was “…angry and desperate for some kind of change that would give myself and my fellow New Yorkers the agency we deserve…”

You can watch the full hearing HERE. The CRC has the authority to put changes to the NYC charter on the ballot this November for the voters to decide on. For those Let Us Vote members who live in NYC, you can submit written testimony to the Charter Revision Commission through this link.

If you would like to get more involved with the effort to get the primaries open in NYC, please email Cathy Stewart at cstewart@openprimaries.org.

We want to hear from you?

Why are you an independent?

Bruce Armstrong, from Naples, Florida, penned a great editorial last week in the News Press. In his article, Florida Needs to Become an Open Primary State, Bruce writes, “Locking 4 million registered voters out is not only highly unfair to those voters, it also deprives Florida of their input and contributes to the hyper-partisanship of today’s politics.” While applauding the Democratic Party in the state for considering opening their primaries, he argues that this does not go far enough and the state needs to have a fully nonpartisan primary.

Give his full article a read.

Thanks Bruce!