The 2025 mayoral race is well underway, with lots of candidates lining up — and fundraising — to challenge Mayor Eric Adams. Lots of other races are on the ballot this year, too, including the whole City Council.
But if you want to weigh in on who gets the major-party nomination for any of those offices, you’ll need to vote in the June primary elections. And to do that, you may need to make a big change in your voter registration now: the deadline to switch parties for the primary is Feb. 14.
New York City has what are called “closed primaries,” which means that only members of the candidates’ political party can vote for which candidate should become the nominee. That means you have to be a registered Democrat to vote in the Democratic primary, and a Republican for that party’s primary.
It also means that if you registered to vote without a party — known to the Board of Elections as a “blank,” or independent — or if you are registered with the Working Families or Conservative parties, you won’t be able to vote in the June major-party primaries.
Tons of New Yorkers are not affiliated with any party. In fact, those unaffiliated independents outnumber Republicans in every borough except Staten Island — and they’re growing.
Want to make the switch? Here’s what you need to know ahead of the June primary election.
What’s the deadline to switch parties?
The deadline to switch parties in New York City is February 14, 2025. In the past, there has been some confusion over that deadline between the state and city, but rest assured: If you live in the five boroughs — as you would have to in order to vote for mayor or any local office — your deadline is Feb. 14.
Remember that Feb. 14 is the deadline for the city Board of Elections to receive your registration switch. That means that if you’re registering online, you must submit your registration by Feb. 13, one day earlier. If you’re dropping off physical papers at your local BOE office, Feb. 14 still works.
The deadline for changing your party affiliation used to be in October of the year before the primary. Government-reform groups like Common Cause New York fought to move the deadline closer to the primary.
“We wanted the deadline to change party registration to be pretty much the deadline for registering,” said Susan Lerner, Common Cause’s executive director. “While it’s still a far distance from the primary election, it’s a lot closer than it was several years ago.”
I don’t remember my current registered party. How can I check?
If you don’t remember your current registration, you can easily check online: just enter your name, birthday, ZIP Code and borough, and you’ll be able to see what your current voter registration says.
Your registration information also includes your address, so if you’ve moved, you can submit a new registration form for where you live now. (By the way, the deadline to submit your address change before the primary is June 9.)
Using the same link above, you can also see all of your voting districts for Assembly, State Senate, Congress, the City Council and more. Those dictate which candidates you can vote for in other races.
How do I register with a new party?
To switch parties, you submit a new voter registration form. You can do this online, by downloading the form and mailing a printed copy to Board of Elections, 32 Broadway, 7th Floor,
New York, N.Y. 10004, or by dropping off your physical copy at a BOE office. The address of the city’s BOE offices are listed here.
If you have a New York State drivers license, you can also register on the DMV website.
Which parties hold primaries?
New York has four political parties qualified to have ballot lines: the Democratic Party, Republican Party, Working Families Party and Conservative Party. But you often only see primaries for the two major parties because, typically, there aren’t enough candidates to hold contested primaries for the WFP or Conservatives.
And since New York City is so blue and so Democratic, many times, the winner of the Democratic party goes on to win in the general election in November. If you aren’t part of the primary — either as a registered WFP member, or as an independent, for example — you won’t have a chance to weigh in on what is typically the make-or-break contest in June.
But I don’t want to register with any party! I really can’t vote in the primary?
Sorry, but no, you can’t. And you are far from alone.
In New York’s party system, if you choose not to register with any party, you check a box that says “No party” on your voter registration form.
It’s prefaced with this text: “I do not want to enroll in any political party and wish to be an independent voter.”
This does not mean that you are registering to a third party called “independent,” but that you are not registering to any party at all. And just as if you may have registered with the WFP or the Conservative Party, a “no party” or “independent” registration means that you cannot vote in the Democratic or Republican primaries in June.
There are many reasons why people may not want to affiliate with the Democratic or Republican parties: Lerner says that people cite “corruption,” and “the perception that the parties put the interests of elected officials above the interests of the others.”
“They say, ‘I really don’t like either political party, neither political party really stands for what I believe in, neither political party is actually working for me and the things I think are important,’” Lerner explained.
Whatever their reasons, because of our primary system, people who choose “no party” will have less of a say in their mayoral candidate.
“The most important thing is for people to understand our closed primary system and to make a determination,” said Lerner. “Is it more important in your mind to be unaffiliated with a party and let someone else choose who’s going to actually be the Democratic or Republican nominee, or do you want to have your own voice heard in the primary?”
Many places handle this differently; New York is one of only 14 states and Washington, D.C., where at least one party has a closed primary.
Why should I vote in the primary?
For better or worse, if you don’t have a say in who the Democratic mayoral candidate is, you’re losing a lot of your say in who becomes the next mayor of New York City.
“If you don’t vote in the party primary, the choice has pretty much been made for you already,” said Lerner.
That’s not how it should be, according to advocacy groups whose goals are to increase voter turnout and get more people to the polls.
“Our biggest mission is to get more people to vote and to make it less complicated,” said Betsy Gotbaum, the executive director of Citizens Union. “And of course an open primary would make it less complicated and more people will vote.”
But for now, that’s how the system works. And people have already mobilized to make voters aware, like mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani who took to social media this month to remind prospective voters of the deadline.
Ready to make your voice heard in the primary? Make sure you’re registered with a major party before Feb. 14.
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