Volunteer Lawyers Project holds training on how to run a voter registration drive

August 31, 2017 By Rob Abruzzese, Legal Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The BBA’s Volunteer Lawyers Project (VLP) hosted a training session on how to run a voter registration drive where Diane Burrows, of the League of Women Voters of the City of New York, gave tips on how to increase civic engagement. Pictured are Diane Burrows (left) and Sarah Burrows, the pro bono manager at VLP. Eagle photo by Rob Abruzzese

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The Brooklyn Bar Association Volunteer Lawyers Project (VLP) hosted a public seminar with the League of Women Voters titled “How to Register Voters and Increase Civic Engagement” at the law firm of Abrams Fensterman in Downtown Brooklyn Wednesday night.

“Our organization is a Brooklyn-based nonprofit. We provide legal services to low-income residents of Brooklyn in a number of different civil practice areas,” explained Sarah Burrows, pro bono manager at VLP. “With an election coming up and people wanting to get more involved, but not always knowing how, we thought it was the right timing to partner with the League of Women Voters to bring a training on voter registration.”

It was an hour-and-a-half-long event where Diane Burrows, vice president of the League of Women Voters of the City of New York, taught attendees how to organize successful voter registration drives in New York and shared tips on ways to get people to follow through and vote in upcoming elections.

“Our goal is to train you on how to run a voter registration drive, how to set up, how to decide where, when and how to do it,” said Diane Burrows. “Also, more importantly, our goal this evening is to promote civic engagement in our communities — whatever community you engage in and are a part of so that people feel like they are a part of the community and a part of the system.”

Diane Burrows explained that a major factor when it comes to voter registration drives is dealing with misinformation. This is an issue when dealing with people coming to New York from a different state, where the local laws can and often are quite different.

One of the biggest issues that comes up is over having identification or not. In New York state, the current law is that new voters do need to have identification, a driver’s license or social security card, but they don’t need to show it to a person who is assisting to register them. ID is not required when voting, only a signature is needed, unless a driver’s license number or social security number were not provided during registration. In that case, proof of address would be required at the voting site.

Another common issue that comes up is dealing with party affiliation. In New York, to vote in a primary election, a voter has to be registered with the party holding the primary and cannot vote in a primary for another party. In the general election, anyone registered can vote for any party regardless of their personal affiliation.

“People have come up to me and said, ‘I want to change my registration because I don’t want to vote for this party or that party,’ and that is wrong,” Diane Burrows said. “You have to explain that just because you’re in that party, for the general election you don’t have to vote for that candidate.”

When explaining how to get newly registered voters to follow through on voting, Diane Burrows explained that simple things can make a difference. One of the things that the League of Women Voters does is have a sign-up sheet for people to put an email address or cellphone number down for an election day reminder. She also said that providing transportation to polling stations can make a big difference.

“Getting people engaged beyond just registering is really important because we’ve held drives that were very successful because we got a lot of people to register, but when it came to voting we found out that a lot of those people didn’t follow through,” Diane Burrows said.

In Brooklyn, it is too late to register for the primaries which are held on Tuesday, Sept. 12, but there is still plenty of time to register for the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 7. The deadline to register for the general election is Friday, Oct. 13.

The next election will determine the next NYC mayor, comptroller, public advocate and councilmembers and in Brooklyn the borough president, Supreme and Civil Court judges and district attorney.

In Brooklyn, the primaries can often be as important as the general election because there are many more Democrats than Republicans that run in local elections. For instance, in the race for district attorney there are six Democratic candidates and no Republican candidates.

People can check their registration status by visiting https://voterlookup.elections.state.ny.us/.