Citing embarrassingly outdated election laws, AG proposes sweeping reforms

Claiming that current election laws put New Yorkers at “the back of the bus,” state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Monday proposed a set of reforms that would make it easier to register, change parties and actually cast a vote.

The existing set of laws, Schneiderman said at the state Capitol, “hurts voters and hurts our democracy.”

In a press conference outside his Albany office, the Democrat unveiled a 27-page report on voter access problems reported to his office before, during and after April’s presidential primary. He said 1,500 calls had come in — more than 10 times the number received on any previous election day.

The most common category of complaint — accounting for two-thirds of the calls to his office — involved problems with registration, especially what the AG referred to as the nation’s earliest and “most ridiculous” deadline for those seeking to change their party affiliation, which this year fell on Oct. 9, 2015 — 193 days before the presidential primary.

Read more: http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/269926/citing-embarrassingly-outdated-election-laws-ag-proposes-sweeping-reforms/