Northwest Bronx Democrats say…Will Non Citizen voting change future campaign strategies?
By: Anthony Rivieccio, Founder
By the time you read this the NY City Council is about to create a historic piece of legislation.
The Council is finalizing a bill that will allow ” non citizens” to vote. Many restrictions will apply and the bill will only apply to ” municipal” elections. The Board of Elections will be in charge of creating an apparatus to stem more ” non citizens ” voting.
Now this article has nothing to do with whether you agree or don’t. The big question , mucky mucks will be asking is: Will this ” change the political game”?.
Many decades ago, political clubs were created to help organize the vote. While many clubs ” enspouse” unity, of course, many steer for their own candidate in both The Primary & General election. Since these clubs would have a defined purpose all they had to do was get a small but substitive core group to win.
Then 20 years ago, the strategy went from ” club members running their hood” to the ” Towers ” strategy. Why just go after Mary & John that live in a house when you can go after 100 of them living in a new 8 story building. Over the course of those 20 years, the Bronx population has actually risen from the highest amount , since the 1970s, from 1.3 to 1.4 million people – or for simplistic sake- If you chopped it up per district ( there are 10) that would be approximately 140,000 people in each district.
Recent information from The Daily News & Post state that the new ” non citizen” vote bill could assist up to 800,000 non citizens in NYC. If we ( for simplistic sake-) looked at it per NYC district that would be 20,000 people or an Increase in voting population potential of 14%
So, how will this effect your district? Well, I looked at 3 in The Bronx! The 11th, the 13th & 15th Council Districts. Let’s look at The most recent elections in 2021, before the upcoming law
People that voted in 2021
Special Primary General
11th 8767. 15,085. 19186
15th. 3128. 6,673. 8,585
13th n/a. 9,960. 18135
Percentage of voting population
11th. 6%. 11%. 14%
15th. 2%. 5%. 6%
13th. N/a 7%. 13%
So what does it all mean? Well, let’s get back to our 20,000 non citizens per district. If we presume , for example, in the 11th District, the avg % of the voting population is 11%, then the non citizen voting population would be an addition 2200 people..
How would that effect the 11th district numbers above?
In the special election:
8727 to 10967 a 20% increase
from 6% to 8%
In the Primary: a 13% increase
From 11% to 13%
In the General: a 10% increase
From 14% to 16%
Or we can look at it another way. What if one can control this non citizen population, politically?
Using the 3 Council seats & the same avg of voting :
Special. Primary General
11th. 9,900. 17,100. 22000
Increase in %
11th 12%. 12%. 14%
15th. 11%. 6%. 11%
13th n/a. 12%. 10%
Now , just looking at these samples, your first glance will be: oh wow, that’s an over 10% move in vote! Yes it is ! In a 2 person race, that would be significant.
However, In today’s multiple candidate, Ranked choice voting races, it could split this to irrelevancy, or if controlled, use this as the new campaign strategy . Note between these 3 districts there were a total of 25 candidates.
If the new Multi candidate ” blue wave” , ranked choice voting combo takes effect, a 10% increase could get waddled down to a 2% decrease, per candidate but could go back up to 3-4% if the RVC voting gets consolidated to one particular candidate.
So yes, in the end , non citizen voting could be a 2-3% factor. Living in a Democrat bled city , I would say, in General Elections, it’s not a factor. In Primaries? 3%? I would say what I think it will do is usher in brand new ” consultants” who will want to convince the new candidates that this is important.
In our opinion, Ranked Choice voting and the new multi candidate ” blue wave”, non citizen voting will be , important, historic & maybe even, irrelevant.
But not withstanding those two factors, based on the numbers above ( and presume no blue wave / rcv factors)
% increase for primary
11th CD. 15%
15thCD. 14%
13th CD 13%
That’s, significant!
Anthony Rivieccio has been founder of The Northwest Bronx Democrats , a community & political organization since 2003. Their target areas are: Fordham, Kingsbridge , Kingsbridge Heights , Bedford Park, Norwood , Allerton. The current President is Sheila Sanchez .
You can find our Facebook Group page by just going to Facebook search and typing in: “Northwest Bronx Democrats”. We feature daily: NYC & Bronx community & political news, activities & events. Our close to 2000 members include several distinguished : activists, NYC agency staff directors, elected and party officals-, including Councilpeople, State Assembly, State Senate & Congressional representatives, and numerous people of interest.
Northwest Bronx Democrats is featured weekly in local political media & on the political streaming TV show, The Politics, on every Friday at The New York Parrot Facebook & you tube channel sites .
About The Author
