POTSDAM — After more than three decades of advocacy work by the League of Women Voters and other good government groups in New York, the state legislature finally passed a package of comprehensive voting reforms in January. Kathleen Stein, the president of the St. Lawrence County League of Women Voters, discusses these new voting laws with NCM host Donna Seymour in the latest North Country Matters video magazine.

With one of the poorest voter turnout records in the nation, this much-needed modernization should making voting easier and enhance civic engagement in New York, according to a press release from North Country Matters. The YouTube link for this edition is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gCwEbBeRR0.

The package of reforms included early voting, same day voter registration, no-excuse absentee voting, pre-registration for 16 and 17 year olds, primary consolidation, state-wide voter registration transfer, and closing the LLC loophole. In addition, they discuss the implications the primary consolidation will have on petition and other deadlines for candidates wanting to run in 2019.

North Country Matters is a local public affairs video magazine now in its 15th year. The NCM civic partners working to educate North Country residents about critical public policy issues facing our region are the League of Women Voters of St. Lawrence County and the Potsdam Public Library. The shows are filmed in the Fred W. Cleveland Computer Center at the Potsdam Library.

The shows are always available on YouTube. Check the League of Women Voters of St. Lawrence County website (http://slc-leaguewv.org/) for specific program links as they become available. And be sure to “like” the NCM Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NorthCountryMatters/ for up-to-date information on new shows and links to local and state-wide voter education news stories.