Voter Analysis Report: 2025

• More than 5.3 million New Yorkers were registered to vote in 2025. This represents a registration rate of 94.3%, up nearly 9 percentage points from 2024 and the first time it has surpassed 90% since 2021. 
• New registrations more than doubled compared to 2021, with more than 260,000 people registering for the first time, approaching the number of new voters typically seen in a presidential election year. 
• Primary turnout rose to 29.9%, up from 26.5% in 2021. General election turnout reached 41.6% (2.2 million voters), the highest in a New York City election in over 50 years and nearly double the 23.3% recorded in 2021. 
• The biggest story was youth engagement, with voters aged 18–29 turning out at 41.9% in the general election, more than triple their 11.1% rate in 2021. 

Primary Election Turnout

General Election Turnout

New Voters

• New registrations in 2025 more than doubled compared to 2021, reaching 260,195, a number much closer to what’s typically seen in presidential election years.  
• Newly registered voters then turned out at high rates: 59.6% in the primary and 61.8% in the general (triple the 2021 figure), reversing the historical pattern of low participation among new registrants. Nearly two-thirds of new registrants were under 30, and among new voters, younger age groups turned out at the highest rates. 
   

Ranked Choice Voting

• 2025 marked the third time New York City used ranked choice voting (RCV) in primary elections.  
• 79.0% of voters ranked more than one candidate in at least one race, down from 88.3% in 2021.  
• In the Democratic mayoral race, the most common ballot sequence—Cuomo in the first rank followed by four blanks—appeared on 15.3% of valid ballots.  
• The ranking sequence Mamdani–Lander–Adrienne Adams–Myrie–Blake appeared on 74,185 ballots, or 14.2% of all ballots that used all five ranks.
• This was a stark increase compared to 2021, when the most common sequence that used all five ranks was used on just 0.1% of ballots, demonstrating how voters and organizations are using RCV more strategically. 
• Ballot errors continued to decline: fatal overvote rates, or the rate of errors that invalidate ballots, decreased from 1.2% in 2021 to 0.9% in 2025.

Recommendation to align registration dates

• To allow more voters to participate in primary elections, the state legislature should amend the election law to move the party enrollment deadline to ten days before an election, to line up with the voter registration deadline.  
• While doing this, the state legislature should also amend the election law to move the change of name and/or address deadline to this same day.   
• This would address the asymmetry in how New York election law treats those who seek to register versus those who seek to make changes to their registration. Under this change, already-registered voters would have the same window to choose their party enrollment and correctly record their name and/or address ahead of the mayoral primary as first-time registrants. 

Recommendations to strengthen CFB governance

The Voter Assistance Advisory Committee (VAAC), a nine-member body that advises the CFB on voter engagement, has long been non-functional. The CFB recommends consolidating the VAAC into a reformed Board structure through three changes: 

1. Integrate the VAAC’s responsibilities directly into the Board, formalizing voter engagement as a core Board mandate and requiring two public hearings per year. 
2. Expand the Board from five to seven members, with the mayor and speaker each appointing three members (up from two), and the mayor continuing to appoint the chair after consultation with the speaker. 
3. Align Board member compensation with comparable City boards; current pay is $100 per day, which may limit who can serve.