Blakeman rips NYS plan for a voter registation drive on Rosh Hashana and Shabbat, excluding frum Jews

Voter registration programs aim to make voting more accessible for people, and to encourage them to participate in the democratic process. But a recent directive from the state Board of Elections has done just the opposite for Jewish constituents, County Executive Bruce Blakeman says.

One statewide voter registration date — this year, Thursday, Oct. 3, the first day of Rosh Hashana — is established by state law. But while a second, local voter registration program also takes place in Nassau County, the dates on which that program may take place is up to the state Board of Elections and not the county. And the state gave the county just two options to choose from: Sept. 28 or Oct. 5 — both Saturdays.

That makes the voter registration program inaccessible for observant Jews, as well as Seventh-Day Adventists, and is antithetical to the program’s purpose of diversity and inclusion, Blakeman said at a news conference last week.

“We are here in West Hempstead, which has a very large Jewish population — and quite frankly, Nassau County is home to probably the third-largest Jewish county in population in the United States,” said Blakeman, who is the county’s first Jewish executive. “And we have a very large population of Seventh-Day Adventists, especially in the Elmont and Franklin Square areas. So we believe that the state is making a big mistake, and we would ask them to correct that mistake.”

Blakeman appeared with county legislators Bill Gaylor and Mazi Pilip; the Legislature’s presiding officer, Howard Kopel; Comptroller Elaine Phillips, and Rabbi Yossi Lieberman of Chabad of West Hempstead, on July 11 at Halls Pond Park in West Hempstead. He urged Attorney General Letitia James to take action to correct the state election board’s decision.

“As we welcome a voter registration program and we encourage everyone to participate in an election, I would expect from our state leadership to be sensitive for Shabbat,” said Pilip. “Shabbat is a day for many Jewish people, they are resting, they are going to synagogue, they don’t work, they don’t use phones, they don’t do anything that typically they’d do on a regular day.”

Even the statewide voter registration date of Oct. 3 is problematic for Jewish constituents, Kopel said.

“Nobody’s saying it’s necessarily deliberate,” Kopel said, “but let’s also remember that not only is that Thursday date a workday, it is also, as it happens, the day after Rosh Hashana. It is a fast day. Some people don’t feel well — they’re fasting, they can’t get out, they’re not up to it.”

Because the Saturday dates for the county program were finalized by state legislation, they cannot be changed without legislative action. The state Board of Elections, however, has the power to change the statewide registration program from a Thursday to a Sunday, so it is not on a working day. Blakeman called on James to direct the state board to make that change.

“It should be a very simple thing to do,” Kopel said. “Just go ahead, make the change. And I would also urge our officials to be a little bit more sensitive and a little bit more careful, and think about what you’re doing before you go ahead and do it. Because this was just really careless.”