This week- New York’s Population Remains Stable; U.S. House Committee Requests 2020 Census Information; State Senate Elections Committee to Meet; Census Funding on the Budget Table, Attorney General VRA Pre-clearance Activity; Around the Nation from @RedistrictNet
CENSUS
New County Census Estimates Show State’s Population is Stable But Declining
On March 26 2026, the U.S. Census Bureau released the Vintage 2025 County population estimates with data available from April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025. This report was produced by the Cornell Program on Applied Demographics and authored by Jan Vink and Leslie Reyonds.
The report “highlights results from these estimates including the components of change: natural increase and net-migration. Natural increase is the difference between the number of births and the number of deaths, while net-migration is the difference between the number of people moving into and out of an area and can be broken into net domestic and net international migration. Each section includes highlights at the Economic Development Region and county level.
Highlights:
The population in New York State declined by 1.0% (201,269 people) since the 2020 Census. However, the population remained stable (negligible increase of 0.01%) in the most recent year
Regions
- Three Economic Regions gained population since April 1st, 2020: Capital Region, Long Island and Mid-Hudson. The other seven regions lost population during this period.
- Six of the state’s ten regions lost population between 2024 to 2025. Mid-Hudson gained the most in relative population (+13,285; 0.54%) while the North Country lost the most (-2,323; -0.56%).
- Seven regions saw more deaths than births in the most recent year, with the Southern Tier losing the most relative population due to natural decrease (-0.3%). Mid-Hudson and New York City were tied for the largest relative gains (0.42%) due to natural increase, with New York City gaining more numerically (+36,101).
- Four regions lost population due to net migration overall migration between July 2024 and 2025, but eight regions lost population due to negative net domestic migration.
- Four regions with negative net domestic migration had enough net international migration to result in positive total net migration: Finger Lakes, Mid-Hudson, Southern Tier, and Western New York.
Counties
- Between 2020 and 2025, the population in 35 counties declined by 1% or more, and increased by 1% or more in 14 counties.
- Schuyler County lost the most in relative population (-5.41%) while Rockland gained the most (5.63%). •
- In the most recent year, five counties declined by -0.75% or more while only one county grew by over 0.75% (Montgomery; 0.94%).
- Most counties (47 out of 62) experienced more deaths than births (natural decrease) between 2024 and 2025. Rockland gained the most in relative population due to natural increase (1.29%) while Hamilton lost the most due to natural decrease (-0.96%).
- Between 2024 and 2025, more people moved into than out of (positive net migration) 38 counties.
- Negative net domestic migration was offset by positive net international migration (resulting in positive net migration) in 12 counties”
The report can be read here: https://bit.ly/3Ny1VxP
U.S. House Committee Seeks Census Details from Census Bureau
Excerpted from the Census Project Blog:
“To assist the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in census oversight, Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has written to George Cook, the acting director of the Census Bureau, requesting details and documentation on operational issues and future safeguards by April 7, 2026. The Chairman’s requests cover a broad spectrum of concerns, including avoiding a repeat of errors and inaccuracies from the 2020 Census, improving the rural count, testing and planning, using direct responses instead of statistical estimation and imputation, and other issues, looking both forward and backward.
The requests included:
“All documents and communications related to methodological or other errors that contributed to state undercounts and overcounts in the 2020 Census, including but not limited to errors in enumerating group quarters populations and the use of differential privacy methodology, and an assessment of the extent to which those errors were associated with over and undercounts identified in the Bureau’s Post-Enumeration Survey for the 2020 Census”;
“(d)ocuments and communications detailing any other issues the Bureau identified to be associated with mistakes made during the 2020 Census;
“All documents and communications pertaining to protocols, procedures, mechanisms, tools, or methods for data collection, data processing, or other matters the Bureau plans to test or otherwise implement during the 2026 and 2028 Census Tests
“(d)ocuments and communications pertaining to any Bureau projections before the 2020 Census estimating or otherwise discussing where overcounts or undercounts might occur during the 2020 Census;
“(d)ocuments and communications pertaining to measures the Bureau took to ensure its partner organizations remained politically neutral and unbiased in their work during the 2020 Census;
“(d)ocuments and communications constituting or concerning reports, memos, analyses, or other evaluations prepared by the Bureau concerning the performance of enumerators during the 2020 Census;
“(d)ocuments and communications pertaining to delays in pre-apportionment work in 2020 and 2021 and whether or how they allowed the Biden Administration to make enumeration alterations affecting the ultimate apportionment of congressional districts in 2021”; and
“(d)ocuments and communications detailing the extent to which the 2020 Census’ enumeration was based on direct contacts with individuals versus estimates and the bases for such estimates, including all documents within the scope of Director Santos’ aforementioned commitment to provide documents concerning such estimates.”
LEGISLATION
STATE LEGISLATION
Albany Lawmakers to Advance Key Voting Reforms Ahead of Budget Deadline
The State Senate Elections and Assembly Election Law Committees will meet to advance voting law changes this week.
The Assembly will take up two measures Tuesday. Both are new bills without Senate versions (no ‘same as’) at this time. A9626A would require that each local Board of Elections designate at least one ballot dropbox in a public location (e.g., town and village halls, libraries, or county clerk’s offices) to make the return of mail ballots less reliant on the USPS for timely post-marking and delivery. While this new bill would bring New York’s recently-enacted but dormant “dropbox” authorization law into action, Boards would need to move quickly to procure the needed equipment, in order to bring them into service this year. A10715 would create a lengthy blackout period–running from the first day of petitioning through the corresponding election day–to keep nonconsensual, materially deceptive media that is not clearly satire out of political ads and broadcasts, unless the content is accompanied by a clear disclosure to viewers or listeners that the content has been manipulated. However, it wouldn’t be effective until 2027.
Also Tuesday, State Senate Elections will take up an agenda of eight bills after a presentation by election reform advocates from the statewide Let New York Vote Coalition. Advocates are likely to discuss key voter protection measures they hope to get in place ahead of the 2026 Midterm Elections, and three coalition priorities included on Tuesday’s Committee agenda.
S440, a Let New York Vote priority known as the Democracy During Detention Act (DDDA), would codify the right to vote for thousands of eligible citizens detained pre-trial across the state or serving sentences for misdemeanors, and provide access to voter eligibility information, timely voter registration and at least one secure method of balloting. These New Yorkers retain the right to vote, yet their access to the ballot is severely limited by the various barriers of confinement (e.g., lack of internet access; jail-mail delays). A 2023 survey by the NYS League of Women Voters found only 11 of the 57 counties outside NYC had “meaningful and effective programs” to facilitate voting by detained citizens. DDDA would improve uniformity, bipartisan oversight, and quality control, mandating intergovernmental cooperation between local election and correction officials, while preserving flexibility to develop a tailored local plan that facilitates effective access to the ballot and reduces barriers for their constituents.
Under the program, large corrections facilities in New York’s most populous counties will be included automatically in the existing “Absentee Ballot Collection Program” that currently directs bipartisan teams of election officials and poll workers to conduct in-person visits to large congregate facilities like nursing homes or hospitals, to distribute and collect voting materials. The 18 local election boards serving at least 100,000 registered voters will coordinate a similar program with administrators of populous correctional facilities. As an alternative to this approach, officials have the flexibility to deploy an early voting-style polling place at correctional facilities during the first weekend of early voting which includes “Golden Day” (or in NYC, during the first three days of early voting for at least 18 hours), so confined citizens and facility staff can conveniently register and vote. These programs will be governed by local cooperation agreements vetted and approved by the State Board ahead of elections.
For citizens detained in less-populous counties and facilities, and those detained outside their home county, the bill raises the statewide standard for a “residual” registration and absentee balloting program. At minimum, all such eligible citizens must be provided with effective voter registration and absentee ballot access no later than twenty-one days prior to election day. As with the general population, return postage for absentee ballots is prepaid. The State Board will also issue non-partisan voter eligibility materials, reducing misinformation about disenfranchisement policies.
S441A would add Haitian Creole and languages spoken by people of Middle Eastern or North African heritage, as defined by the Federal OMB’s Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, to those protected by the language access provisions of the New York Voting Rights Act. This includes “[i]ndividuals with origins in any of the original peoples of the Middle East or North Africa, including, for example, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, and Israeli”.
S7116, a ballot integrity measure known as VIVA NY, is a 2026 Let NY Vote priority that passed the Senate previously and is intended to protect elections by preventing ballot manipulation through hacking, malware or similar voting-machine foul play. Specifically, it would ensure that the ballot printing, marking, and scanning technology adopted by boards of elections will still allow voters to verify their selections made by hand or by ballot-marking device (BMD) and not be misled by devices that self-tabulate, lack a paper review option, or rely upon barcodes
The Senate will also advance several Board of Elections modernization and professionalization proposals, to improve the quality of election administration. S5452 would require future local election commissioners, who oversee elections for their entire counties, to meet basic qualifications set by the State Board of Elections that are in line with the state’s Public Officers Law, along with some background in election administration or other management, operations, or administrative experience in the public, non-profit, or private sector. S1087 requires the 57 county boards of elections outside NYC to hire (at least) their bipartisan commissioners as full-time employees of the board, in recognition that overseeing voter registration, ballot access, and free and fair elections in 2026 and beyond isn’t merely a side hustle. S2050 would extend the two-year terms of election commissioners to four-year terms, allowing for longer-term planning and adoption of new equipment, technology, and procedures. All of these measures have passed the Senate previously and the first two were recommended by the Brennan Center for Justice and adopted as Let New York Vote priorities years ago, only to die in the Assembly. Perhaps this is the year Albany will get them done, for the people.
S2056A, known as the Student Voter Empowerment Act, is a 2026 Let NY Vote priority that would improve access to timely voting information, registration, and balloting options for students on public and private college and university campuses across the state. The measure prescribes voter engagement action plans with multiple civic events per year on campus and ensures students are provided with nonpartisan eligibility and election information. To effectuate this, each campus will designate a staff member to serve as a student voting coordinator. Each school will then issue a detailed report to the state board on efforts to improve voter registration and participation to help administrators, academics, and policymakers analyze student voting behavior. Notably, according to a recent Times Union OpEd in support of the bill, in 2024, New only 41.2% of New Yorkers in the 18-to-24 age-group voted, placing the state next to bottom in the Northeast, 15 points below the region’s average.
Finally, S654 would prohibit public schools from being designated as Early Voting locations, which is almost exclusively a concern in parts of NYC where the practice exists. The bill would also eliminate the age-old prohibition on placing poll sites in a location where “a business licensed to sell alcoholic beverages for on premises consumption” is located.
FEDERAL LEGISLATION
The SAVE Act
Now pending in the U.S. Senate. the SAVE Act would require individuals to provide “acceptable” documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections. States would be required to establish programs to identify individuals who are not U.S. citizens and must remove those identified as non-citizens from their official lists of eligible voters. Under this bill, all states would be required to have their voter records screened by the Department of Homeland Security.
Despite the vote on the SAVE Act being stalled in the U.S. Senate, awaiting a re-vote after the Senate returns from a two week recess, several states are likely to vote on new voting measures in their individual states related to citizenship. These states include Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia.
In West Virginia the amendment to the state’s constitution would change from “citizens of the state shall be entitled to vote,” to “only citizens of the state who are citizens of the Unites States are entitled to vote.” This change will be on the ballot in the fall and be decided by voters. Arizona is also preparing a ballot measure to amend its constitution to allow only citizens to vote. Utah, and South Dakota have SAVE act copycat laws awaiting their governors approval.
CENSUS FUNDING
CENSUS 2030 FUNDING ADVANCES
Senate & Assembly Agree to Support Census 2030 Efforts
The state’s leading census advocacy coalition, the New York State Census Partnership, is urging the legislature and Governor Hochul to agree to spend up to $30 million in FY 2027 for census planning and to assist local governments and non-profit organizations in the upcoming “Local Update of Census Addresses” (LUCA) program.
The State Senate is supporting a $30 million allocation to create a state census office in the Department of State while the Assembly supports a $3 million expenditure for a census office and $20 million for census grants to support the work of local governments and non-profit and community based organizations. This represents a a major step forward from Governor Cathy’s Hochul’s original request for only $3 million for state census activity.
The Partnership supports the Senate’s allocation of $30 million and urge the Governor and Assembly to agree.
Negotiations between the Senate, Assembly, and Governor are now taking place.
The Partnership is urging Governor Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins and Speaker Carl Heastie to support the need for $30 million in census spending this coming year. These funds will help educate New Yorkers about the census and prepare the state for the important Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) program — the only opportunity local governments have to review and correct the address list for the upcoming census
Budget negotiators will determine final spending levels and align how funds will be spent and who will staff census efforts. The funding levels reflect legislation sponsored by Assembly Members Michaelle Solages (D-Nassau) and Landon Dais (D-Bronx) and Senator Jeremy Cooney (D-Monroe) that creates a state census office, a state commission, and provides funding to local governments and non-profit census advocate organizations.
VOTING RIGHTS ACT
N.Y. Attorney General’s Office Preclearance
1121 Suffolk County Board of Elections- poll site location- under review- additional information requested
1181 New York City Board of Elections – poll site location- under review
All submissions can be viewed at: https://nyvra-portal.ag.ny.gov/
ELECTIONS
Are Open Primaries in New York City’s Future?
New York City’s political system may soon face a fundamental question: whether to adopt open primaries. The debate centers on a charter revision commission created by former mayor Eric Adams and the resistance from current mayor Zohran Mamdani and progressive allies who see the proposal as a threat to party power. At stake is a question that reaches beyond technical election rules: who gets to influence New York’s most consequential political contests.
Under the current system, New York City holds closed primaries. Only registered members of a political party can vote in that party’s primary election. Since the city leans heavily Democratic, the Democratic primary effectively decides many races long before the general election. Critics argue that this arrangement excludes millions of voters who are registered as independents or members of minor parties and therefore cannot participate in the most competitive stage of the election.
To address concerns about voter exclusion and political polarization, Eric Adams established a charter revision commission on the last day of his mayoralty to consider election reforms, including open primaries. The commission’s task is to study potential changes to the city’s governing charter and recommend proposals that could ultimately appear on the ballot for voters to decide. According to reports, one of its central ideas is to allow all voters to participate in a single primary election regardless of party affiliation.
Supporters of open primaries argue that the current system reinforces political echo chambers. Because turnout in primaries tends to be low and dominated by highly engaged party activists, candidates often appeal to ideological extremes rather than to the broader electorate. Reform advocates believe opening the primary process would produce more moderate candidates, increase voter participation, and give independent voters a meaningful role in shaping city leadership.
The proposal gained momentum in part because New York has a large population of unaffiliated voters. Independents make up a significant share of the electorate, yet they are effectively excluded from choosing the Democratic nominee in a city where that nominee is highly likely to win the general election. Advocates say an open system would better reflect the political reality of the electorate and encourage candidates to appeal to a wider range of voters.
However, the idea faces strong opposition from progressive political leaders. Critics argue that open primaries would dilute party accountability and weaken ideological clarity. Some progressives also suspect that the proposal is politically motivated, pointing out that Adams created the commission as he was leaving office and that it could reshape future elections in ways unfavorable to the left.
Mamdani and his allies have been reported to attempt to block or limit the commission’s work. Their argument is partly procedural and partly ideological. Procedurally, they question whether a commission created by a departing mayor should have the authority to impose structural changes on the city’s electoral system. Ideologically, they argue that party primaries exist for a reason: to allow parties to select candidates who genuinely represent their members. The commission has not met or organized as of press time.
The conflict reflects a broader national debate about how democratic systems should balance party organization with voter inclusion. In New York City, the outcome will determine whether future mayoral and citywide elections remain dominated by closed party primaries or evolve toward a more open system that gives independent voters a larger voice. If the commission- or a future commission- succeeds in placing the proposal on the ballot, the final decision will rest with the city’s voters.
AROUND THE NATION
From The Redistrict Network (@RedistrictNet)
March 23: A Cole County judge has rewritten the ballot summary for the potential referendum on Missouri’s new redistricting plan. https://x.com/RedistrictNet/status/2036111480077082723
March 23: A preliminary report from the MO Sec. of State shows that Missouri Redistricting Referendum has met the signature threshold to qualify for the ballot. MO SoS Hoskins says the report is for informational purposes and is not a final determination. https://x.com/RedistrictNet/status/2036176159365288040
March 24: The Missouri Supreme Court rules 4–3 that Missouri lawmakers can redraw congressional maps mid-decade. https://x.com/RedistrictNet/status/2036511661507424449
March 24: Both cases challenging the compactness of Missouri’s new congressional map, Wise v. State and Healey v. State, are now on appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court. https://x.com/RedistrictNet/status/2036583561633870292
March 26: Utah Republicans petition to repeal independent redistricting and anti-gerrymandering protections has fallen below the signature threshold. The petition no longer has enough signatures to make the November ballot. https://x.com/RedistrictNet/status/2037164446158561410
March 27: The NJ Voting Rights Act has passed the New Jersey Assembly. It now heads to the New Jersey Senate. https://x.com/RedistrictNet/status/2037560167433179218
INSTITUTE RESOURCES
The New York Elections, Census and Redistricting Institute has archived many resources for the public to view on our Digital Commons Page.
Our Redistricting Resources page contains resources on the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act. You can access the page here: https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/redistricting_resources/
Archived Updates can be accessed here: https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/redistricting_roundtable_updates/
Please share this weekly update with your colleagues. To be added to the mailing list, please contact [email protected]
The N.Y. Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute is supported by grants from the New York Community Trust, New York Census Equity Fund, the Mellon Foundation, and the New York City Council. This report was prepared by Jeff Wice, Jarret Berg, Esha Shah & Corinne Gumpman.