Gaby F., 25, has not been paying attention to the New York mayoral election. The Bushwick native, who declined to share her last name, said she has been busy between work and her personal life.
“I’m in a time of my life where it’s a lot. Like, that’s the least of my concern from a personal standpoint, but, I mean, that doesn’t mean that [I] don’t care,” she said.
Despite not paying attention, Gaby said she still voted for New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in June’s primary election, and she was not alone.
Brooklyn voters cast the most ballots in the June primary mayoral election, overtaking Manhattan as the borough with the highest voter turnout. However, political analysts are divided on whether the high turnout reflects an informed voter population.
Candidates have been reaching out to residents across all boroughs as the general election approaches in November. Historically, Manhattan has always ranked first in voter turnout by borough for primary and general elections. According to an initiative by the NYC Campaign Finance Board called NYC Votes, Manhattan had a 33.4 percent voter turnout while Brooklyn came in with the second-highest turnout at 27.5 percent in the 2021 primary election.
In June’s primary, voter turnout flipped between the boroughs. Election results reported by the New York Times showed Brooklyn ranked first as voters cast over 380,000 ballots, giving Mamdani his largest victory. Manhattan ranked second, casting 318,000 ballots.
Some political analysts have attributed the higher voter turnout to enthusiasm surrounding Mamdani, especially amongst Gen Z and first-time voters. According to data from the NYC Board of Elections, 40 percent of early voters in the June primary election were under the age of 40.
However, with so many eyes on the upcoming general election, some Brooklyn residents said they have not paid enough attention to the election to make an informed final decision in November.
Javier Acevedo, a 22-year-old Williamsburg resident, said he has voted in previous elections and plans on voting in November. Despite his plans to vote, he has not paid attention to the election. Acevedo attributes feeling uninformed to the overwhelming amount of available information and “tries to stay out of it.”
“I feel like government should be, you know, official and professional. And I feel like it’s a lot going on out there, kind of like high school a little bit, but then it’s not high school,” Acevedo said.
According to Acevedo, the little he does know about the election mostly comes from social media, television, and word-of-mouth. He said the constant stream of information on social media has been helpful, but has caused him political fatigue.
Acevedo’s use of social media for election news is in line with most voters ages 18-29. According to the Pew Research Center, social media ranks highest for voters under the age of 30 as an election news source, with news websites, web engine searches, and television following behind.
Election news is a key component for how voters make informed decisions. Informed voters are usually described as those who are knowledgeable about the role governmental positions serve, are aware of major issues, and are up-to-date on the candidates and their campaign platforms.
Election news from more traditional media sources, like television, radio, newspapers, and social media, is usually relied on more by older voters.
That rings true for Halina Jankowski, a 69-year-old native of Greenpoint, who said she regularly participates in local elections, but is not currently informed about the current race.
As co-owner and a pharmacist at Northside Pharmacy, located on Driggs Avenue, Jankowski said she often feels on her own when it comes to city officials and their support of local businesses.
“I have to say I’m a little leery of politicians. What they say and what they do doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand,” Jankowski said. “We’ll see, but I can’t see any politicians really protecting small businesses.”
According to Jankowski, whenever she does become informed on the election, she will consult various news sources to help her make a decision and fact-check them, citing the proliferation of AI-generated content as an issue.
“It’s getting a little scary, so that person looks like they did that interview and said that. I don’t know if that’s really the truth,” she said.
While Jankowski has not made a decision on which candidate to support yet, she said law enforcement is among some of the most important issues for her, especially with her family being members.
Her personal connection to law enforcement is an example of how motivational factors could lead voters to become more informed. According to a 2011 study by the University of California, Irvine, self-interest and social identity can be motivational factors for voters.
Civic duty, another factor, played a major role in why Gaby continues to vote, even if she may not be paying attention.
“I know that a lot of people, and especially with how I grew up, it seemed like all [elections] are predetermined, that’s kind of the superstition that people have, and there’s no point in voting,” she said. “But I think that’s a very dangerous lie.”
Gaby said she plans to vote for Mamdani again in November and tries to keep up with the election through news headlines and neutral voter education initiatives like NYC Votes.
Voters, like Gaby, who are not paying attention to the election but still vote, are the reason why voting behavior experts are split on whether high voter turnout means voters are more informed.
A 2016 study by the University of Cambridge found that mobilizing voter populations encourages citizens to become politically informed. However, a 2023 study by the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University found that this is not necessarily the case, depending on how easy it is to access election information.
Also, political commentators across the political spectrum have questioned the impact voters, who are still uninformed, could have on elections.
Uninformed voters were largely attributed to playing a role in both of President Donald Trump’s election wins in 2016 and 2024. In July, Fox News contributor Joe Concha argued that Mamdani is “counting on” uninformed voters to win.
“That’s the thing: a lot of the people that are voting for him, they’re young, they don’t know what the Soviet Union is! They were born after it was here, or Cuba, and that’s the thing,” Concha said during an appearance on Fox News’s Outnumbered. “He’s counting on these folks not being informed about why these things didn’t work.”
In recent years, some political analysts have questioned whether voters should refrain from participating in elections if they are not informed. American University government professor Jan Leighley believes it is more complicated than just saying “uninformed voters could make bad choices.”
“If the assumption is that people vote in their own self-interest, what is the criteria for determining if they have the information to do that? Is it a high level of political engagement? Going to the ‘right’ schools? It’s not necessarily accurate to say someone who has a college degree, for example, is going to make a better choice than someone who doesn’t,” Leighley said in an interview with American magazine.
According to Leighley, voters should use election information to understand that it is in their self-interest to participate in elections.
“Campaigns target people who have already voted for them and in the last 10 days, they go after undecided voters and those who don’t necessarily vote in every election,” Leighley said.
Regardless of whether voters feel informed, mayoral candidates will be spending the last few months before the general election trying to sway uninformed voters in hopes of winning them over on November 4.
