Sen. Zellnor Y. Myrie
Picture: Workplace of Senator Zellnor Y. Myrie
Central Brooklyn Democratic Sen. Zellnor Y. Myrie has requested New York Metropolis Faculties Chancellor David E. Banks for assist in making certain that eligible college students register to vote in November’s Presidential Elections.
Myrie, consultant for the 20th Senate District in Brooklyn, whose grandmother hailed from Jamaica, made the enchantment in a letter to Banks. The letter was co-signed by 26 different legislators representing all 5 boroughs.
“As you understand, this 12 months’s presidential election shall be pivotal to the way forward for our nation. We’re writing to ask on your partnership in making certain our younger persons are outfitted with the instruments they should register to vote this 12 months and actively take part in our democracy,” writes Myrie within the letter, a replica of which was made out there to Caribbean Life.
He notes that, over the previous a number of years, New York has taken “a number of vital steps” to make voting simpler and extra accessible to all eligible voters.
Myrie, who chairs the Senate Elections Committee, factors to Chapter 2 of the Legal guidelines of 2019 that enables 16- and 17- year-olds to pre-register to vote, and requires faculty districts to advertise voter registration and pre-registration of eligible college students.
He additionally writes that, earlier this 12 months, New York State Senate handed laws requiring all graduating highschool college students be supplied with voter registration kinds.
“Regardless of these efforts, New York Metropolis has lengthy struggled with low ranges of voter participation, particularly amongst younger individuals,” Myrie writes. “But, the alternatives we make in our elections matter simply as a lot, if no more so, to our youngest voters. Public colleges are uniquely positioned to arrange college students to be lively residents and members in our democracy.”
The senator, subsequently, requests the lively engagement of NYC Public Faculties “in making certain that every one eligible college students are offered voter registration kinds, informing college students of state necessities for registration and pre-registration, and collaborating with the New York Metropolis Board of Elections as acceptable to conduct voter registration drives in public excessive colleges.”
The voter registration deadline for this 12 months’s normal election is Oct. 26, 2024.
“We consider that New York Metropolis’s college students ought to be actively engaged in our democratic course of, and encourage your help of that goal,” Myrie tells Banks. “This 12 months’s election shall be one of the vital pivotal in American historical past. The result will form the way forward for our nation and the world for generations to come back.
“But, traditionally, New York has seen low ranges of participation by our youngest voters,” he provides. “It’s as much as all of us to reverse this development and assist eligible college students play an lively position in our democracy.”
