Wednesday, February 28, 2018

NYS Assembly Expected to Pass Democracy Protection Act Legislation


Earlier today, Governor Andrew Cuomo and Speaker Carl Heastie, joined by Constitutional Law expert Floyd Abrams of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, and President of the Brennan Center for Justice Michael Waldman, called for swift passage of legislation to ensure New York's elections are fair, transparent and free from foreign influence. The Assembly is expected to pass the legislation, the Democracy Protection Act, today -- the strongest and most comprehensive reforms in the nation that mandate transparency in political advertising, require online platforms to maintain an archive of political ads, and protect State elections from foreign influence. The Governor's budget also includes $7 million to improve access to voting across the state by instituting early voting as well as automatic and same-day voter registration.

To increase transparency of online political advertisements and protect against outside influence, the legislation will expand New York State's definition of political communication to include paid internet and digital advertisements, require digital platforms to maintain a public file of all political advertisements purchased by a person or group for publication on the platform and require online platforms verify that foreign individuals and entities are not purchasing political advertisements in order to influence the American electorate.

In addition, to further strengthen cyber protections for New York's elections infrastructure, the Governor's proposal will create an Election Support Center, develop an Elections Cyber Security Support Toolkit, provide cyber risk vulnerability assessments and support for local boards of elections and require counties to report data breaches to state authorities. More information on the Democracy Agenda is available here.
 
Click here for the audio presentation. 

Source: Press Office, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo

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