NYC Common Sense released the following statement regarding the 2026 NYC Primary Elections:
“The 17 percent turnout in this past Tuesday’s primaries underscores a grim reality: A vast majority of city residents are either tuned out or shut out from participating in the democratic process by a closed primary system. As a result, a small minority of ideologues who are out-of-step with most everyday New Yorkers is driving a radical agenda.
To stem this tide, we must expand voter access by opening the primary system – at the very least to the one in five city voters, well over 1 million people, who are unaffiliated with a political party and therefore disenfranchised and unrepresented in the halls of government.
All New Yorkers deserve a voice, and until they have it, to suggest that the primary results were a mandate rings hollow. Until the city has a truly open voting system, voters are being robbed of the participatory and representative government that is their inalienable right, and extreme viewpoints and policies that do more harm than good will continue to prevail.”
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