Grace Peralta, a resident of the East Elmhurst neighborhood in Queens, doesn’t vote.

“The political realm is very chaotic,” she said, looking around Woodhaven Boulevard near Hoffman Park to make sure her bus had not arrived yet.

Peralta is one of 53% of people in Council District 21 who are not registered to vote. In this Queens district, which includes East Elmhurst, Elmhurst, and Corona, only 15% of the 60,900 registered voters—out of a population of 146,545—participated in the 2021 City Council elections, according to the New York City Board of Elections.

District 21, which is 74% Hispanic with a median household income of $55,000, has one of the lower voter turnout rates across the city, according to an analysis of data from the New York City Campaign Finance Board, the CUNY Graduate Center, and American Community Surevy (ACS).

Peralta’s reasoning for not voting is that New York tends to be a left-leaning city. “It’s a liberal city so when the votes do happen, it’s mostly Democrats,” she said.

Low voter turnout for local elections means that a small portion of New York invariably makes decisions pertaining to many of the everyday issues the city council tries to address.

Stacey Lesser, vice president of Communications at the League of Women Voters, said that despite New York being left-leaning, people’s apathy in voting creates a representation issue because one Democratic ​​candidate is not the same as another.

“People feel that if they're aligned with the democratic point of view, they'll be okay. However, One Democrat might be more concerned about crime. One Democrat might be more concerned about housing rights. Some Democrats are really running on making sure that there's good accessibility for people in the subways,” she said.

District 15, which includes the Bronx neighborhoods of Fordham, Belmont, East Tremont, West Farms, Van Nest, and Allerton had the lowest turnout rate in the city, with slightly more than 12% of 129,432 eligible voters voting in 2021. The low turnout rate in the council district means that only 9% of the community or 12,089 people make decisions for the entire district of 130,131 people, including those who are not eligible to vote.

District 37 encompasses parts of Bushwick, Brownsville, Cypress Hills, Cityline, and East New York in Brooklyn and Queens. District 17 includes communities in the South Bronx such as Crotona Park East, East Tremont, Longwood, Melrose, Morrisania, Port Morris, Hunts Point, and West Farms.​​​​

By contrast, residents in Staten Island’s south shore in District 51 had the highest turnout in the city at over 38%. Aside from District 51, District 6 on the Upper West Side and 50 in Staten Island (including neighborhoods of Mid-Island, from Bloomfield to the northwest to Oakwood Beach to the southeast.) had turnout high rates of 35% and 34%, respectively.

According to Lesser, the voter registration rate for people in New York is generally high. Of the total population of eligible voters, 72% are registered to vote, according to an analysis of data from the NYC Board of Elections and CUNY Graduate Center.

“Our problem is not getting people registered. Our problem is getting people to vote,” she said. Lesser added that to a certain extent, the reason why some people in low-income communities do not vote is because they have other priorities such as working multiple jobs.

Lesser said people offer various reasons as to why they don't vote, such as "it doesn't work in my schedule," or " I'm not that interested in this particular election." Around 10% of New Yorkers voted in the last mayoral election, she said.

However, now that people can cast an absentee ballot that issue is a little less salient.

Lesser said that people are unaware of the impact their elected officials can have.

“We do a really bad job of educating people in the city in general about what the roles of each individual are in the government,” she said.

She added that it's much more difficult to get voters to turn out for primaries. “Because we're such a democratically leaning city, the primaries are really where a lot of the decision-making is made,” she said.

The organization has civic education programs where they go into communities (community colleges, high schools, community organizations, etc.) with low turnout rates and hold workshops.

“Some [people in those communities] have no idea how to reach who represents them,” she said.

She added that the intention of those workshops is to let people know what happens when they call their representatives and to help them understand how much their voice counts.

“Our real goal is to make sure that the hard-won right to vote is one that people exercise,” Lesser said. “To get them to exercise [it] means that they have to understand the impact voting can have on their lives. It's kind of that simple.”

According to Lesser, the League of Women Voters also does a lot of work in communities with large immigrant populations. These areas tend to have lower election turnout because some people are not eligible to vote due to their citizenship status, according to data analysis from the CUNY Graduate Center and the NYC Campaign Finance Board. However, even after becoming naturalized, many of these individuals still do not vote, Lesser said

“We ​​try to teach people whether they can vote or not, they have certain rights that they're entitled to,” Lesser said. “And those rights are a representation of their basic human needs. And they don't even know that,” she said.

Lesser added that people are not being taught that voting needs to be on their radar.

“They haven't even gotten to the point of caring or not caring. the majority of New Yorkers are just too busy to think about this kind of thing. They just haven't taken the time to think it's something that they should think about.” she said.

Giselle M., a resident of District 37 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, which has a voter turnout of 15%, said that she does not seek out much information about local elections and as a result, does not vote unless it’s a presidential election.

“I think, just feeling, like, generally pretty abysmal about the state of politics in the U.S….but I know that it's important to get involved at the local level. I just don't know how to start that,” she said.

Lesser said that people are not engaged in voting unless it’s a presidential election. However, even when it comes to presidential elections, the engagement is low, she said.

“If you ask people who the Democratic candidate for president is, I'm not sure that 50% of people could tell you right now,” she said.

“In a national election, they might be right that their vote doesn't count as much because they're one of millions. But in a local election for a council person, the vote counts a lot,” Lesser said.

She added that it takes fewer than 10 people to reach out to district officials for them to take action on an issue.

Hallie Bowen, a District 21 resident, said that she vigilantly votes in all types of elections. Her reasoning for doing so is that being engaged in local politics is a good foothold for grassroots movements.

“I think a lot of the times Americans tend to focus on, like, the big elections where studies have shown that, the more locally you plant those seeds, the more likely they are to flourish really highly.,” said Bowen, who lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn. “ So I think it's just important if you're going to vote for the big stuff, you have to care about the little stuff too,” she said.

Tyreke Israel, chief of staff for City Councilor Althea Stevens in District 16, said that the reason why voter turnout is so low in the district is because the district has been under-resourced and under-represented for a long time.

In District 16 which encompasses the South Bronx communities of Morrisania, Concourse, Highbridge, and Morris Height, there are 130,131 eligible voters. Of those, 109,155 are registered to vote. However, among the registered voters, only 15% of people, or 16,373 people showed up to the polls in the 2021 council district election.

District 16 has one of the lowest median incomes in the city—$35,000—which is lower than the city’s average—around $70,000, according to the ACS.

“When you live in an area that is almost forgotten about, there are a lot of things that slip through the cracks,” Israel said.

He added that due to high concentrations of poverty as well as the number of shelters in the district, civic engagement has not been instilled value into the community.

“Because you don't feel like this is your home, so then your investment isn't there,” Israel said. “And then maybe it doesn't spark you to look into the local officials and see the work that they're doing, so then you miss an election, and then one election becomes two. And then 10 years in, you realize you haven't voted in how long in those elections,” he said.

He said that even though most people in the district don’t vote, there’s no issue with representation because those in power understand the community's needs. According to him, 16% of voters are older Black women and older people in general who are familiar with the district and its demographics.

He emphasized that civic engagement has always been a priority for Stevens, the councilmember for District 16, elected in 2022.

Israel added that the state and federal governments channeling more financial resources into this low-income area would remedy poverty—the underlying cause of civic apathy. He said that district officials’ efforts to increase civic engagement will be ineffective unless they get more support from the state and federal governments.

“The money flows through all three levels [local, state, and federal levels] so we can do a stellar 100% job at the local city council level, but it doesn't matter if our state officials and our federal partners aren't equally doing the same thing…,” he said.

“It's more of our job to just make sure the community is getting the necessary resources that they need and those conversations [regarding voting and civic engagement with community members] definitely do happen,” he said.

Kyle Hittmeier, a District 37 resident in West Bushwick, Brooklyn, said that he got involved in local politics because of sanitation issues in his neighborhood.

“We had to kind of start making a case to the city that they needed to start working on that.

If it wasn't for us kind of being pushed into that, then we wouldn't have known about what kind of discourse was happening,” he said.

Hittmeier added that he’s aware of the district being on a tight budget, but he’s frustrated that despite his multiple attempts, the trash is still not being taken out on a regular basis.

Jadel Munguia, the assistant press secretary at the New York City Campaign Finance Board, emphasized the efforts made by the agency to get New Yorkers to show up to the polls.

“Even if you don't like your options on the ballot, voting is a way to hold our elective leaders accountable,” she said.

One of the agency’s initiatives that helps communities be more represented by their local officials is the matching funds program. The program matches contributions from New Yorkers who are citizens and permanent residents with public funds in order to allow them to run for office and represent their district.

“This program allows opportunities for people who may not have otherwise been able to run, especially women, people of color, and young people,” she said.

To qualify, candidates must collect the minimum number of contributions of 10 or more from the area they are running to represent and raise a minimum amount of matchable contributions.

According to Munguia, one of the issues in immigrant communities that have a high number of naturalized citizens is the language barrier. However, the campaign finance board created a voter guide in 13 languages.

“We're able to really ensure that every New Yorker is able to engage meaningfully with democracy,” Munguia said.

Across some districts, some New Yorkers are more involved in their local communities.

Sam White, 77, an architect from District 6 in Midtown, said he often relies on the New York Times roster of candidates during election years to see who’s on the ballot.

“I mean, the candidate would have to, rise above the static, the general noise level of static to have us pay attention,” he said.

District 6 which includes neighborhoods such as Hell's Kitchen, Midtown-Times Square, the Upper West Side, and Central Park, had the second largest turnout in the 2021 local election with 35% of all eligible voters, or 40,814 people casting a ballot.

White said that one of the reasons some people might not pay attention to who’s on the ballot is because it is challenging to get anything done in the city.

“Somebody running for a seat in a local councilman's seat could be in favor of or against subsidized housing in a landmark district and it's probably not going to make a whole lot of difference in terms of what happens,” he said.

He added that he pays attention to local politics because the council member of his district, Gail Brewer, has an agenda that he cares about.

“She [Brewer] is a dedicated preservationist,” he said. She really believes that [architectural] preservation is an important part of the life of New York City, rather than a strangling element on the life of New York City, as a number of developers believe.”

Phillip Palmer, a resident of District 10 in Washington Heights, which has a voter turnout of a little over 26%, said he tends to pay attention to who’s on the ballot. However, he feels as though local issues are being overlooked, especially if they have to do with infrastructure for younger children.

“Where I live [in Washington Heights] the pump of a toddler pool broke. I called our Council member and didn't get any responses,” he said. “And I find community liaison people want to show that they're, responding, and I was really surprised. It's still, broken, this pump, and it really upsets me.”

Darryl Brown, a resident of District 22 in Astoria, Queens, said that he’s always cared about local politics to a degree, not just because it personally affects him. However, he is not as involved in his community as he wants to be.

“I pay attention when it's time to vote because when it's time to vote, it's, like, what will they [candidates] do?” he said. “It [local elections] matters more, and I do it less [compared to voting in presidential elections].​​”

Eric Gilley, 48, also a District 22 resident said he is incentivized to vote because he thinks the community funds that each district gets make a difference in resolving local issues.

“When we lived in south Harlem, they redid Morningside Park, I think everybody in the little community went to the meeting and voted to put our funding into doing Morningside Park,” he said.

He added that he usually gets information on local elections through newsletters in the mail.

“I'll read that [newsletter] before I go vote…probably two days before,” he said.