Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brought a new statewide voter outreach effort to Buffalo Thursday, targeting registered Democrats who have become inactive ahead of the November general election.
The effort, dubbed “Project Reactivation,” is aimed at roughly 100,000 inactive registered Democrats across New York, according to Ocasio-Cortez’s team. Nearly 5,000 of those voters are in Erie County.
Ocasio-Cortez said the campaign is intended not only to get those voters back to the polls, but to address why some stopped participating in the first place.
“Oftentimes inactive voters are blamed as though it's their fault for not participating,” she said. “We need to give people a reason to participate. We need to give people a reason and something to vote for.”
Under New York election law, inactive status does not mean a voter is no longer registered or eligible to cast a ballot. A voter is placed into inactive status when a county Board of Elections sends a confirmation notice, which can be prompted by circumstances including returned election mail or indications that the voter has moved. Inactive voters are removed from regular poll books but remain eligible to vote.
If a voter who receives a confirmation notice neither responds nor votes through the second federal election following the notice, their registration may ultimately be canceled.
Organizers at Thursday’s event said their outreach is focused specifically on inactive registered Democrats. They identified Buffalo’s West Side as having the highest concentration of those voters in Erie County.
Project Reactivation will use several layers of outreach. Organizers plan to begin by sending letters, followed by phone calls to confirm voters still live in the area. Text messages and door-to-door canvassing will follow as Election Day approaches. The campaign is also working with the New York Democratic Party on the effort.
Ocasio-Cortez said her campaign previously tested the approach in her congressional district and was able to activate about 30% of the voters it targeted. She said the strategy is now being expanded statewide.
Speaking with reporters after the event, Ocasio-Cortez said she believes some voters have grown accustomed to hearing from politicians only shortly before elections.
“I think there's a very large segment of voters that feel taken for granted, and a lot of people have the experience of only seeing sometimes someone come around a couple weeks before an election,” she said.
Ocasio-Cortez said she sees an opportunity to change that relationship.
“I know that there's a huge opportunity for us to reengage and have people feel like government is fighting for them," she said.
That sentiment was echoed by Alok Pinto, campaign manager for Adam Bojak for Assembly, who attended Thursday’s gathering. Pinto said electoral organizing can help draw people back into politics, but argued that lasting engagement requires work beyond individual elections.
“It's vital work, and electoral work kind of ties into that," Pinto said. "It gets people excited, but underneath that, we need to create a foundation of community building, growing roots in the community, and getting people to engage again after decades of stagnancy in Western New York politics."
Asked why Buffalo was included in the statewide effort, Ocasio-Cortez pointed to the city’s working-class history and diversity.
“Buffalo — it's the city of neighbors, and I think that the diversity that we see here in the city, the working-class heritage of Buffalo, the history of Buffalo, really shows a lot of the promise that we have in the state,” she said.
She said the effort will continue in Syracuse and Ithaca before expanding into rural communities across New York.
“The whole point of this is to not write off or make assumptions about a single person or a single voter in the state of New York,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
New Yorkers have until Oct. 24 to register for the Nov. 3 general election. Changes of address received by county election boards by Oct. 19 must be processed in time for the election. Early voting runs from Oct. 24 through Nov. 1.
