Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he wants to get a lot more people registered to vote — more than one million — and get more New Yorkers civically engaged beyond voting too. And he has hired someone to focus on just that.

Ayirini Fonseca-Sabune, an attorney who previously worked on tenants' rights, is the city's first Chief Democracy Officer. Her first order of business since starting the job this month was coordinating voter registration drives with students and at city jails, among other places.

She works for the mayor's new Democracy NYC initiative, which had a fumble a couple of weeks ago when it mistakenly sent letters to more than 30,000 voters notifying them that their registration status was inactive. It was part of a massive mailing intended for some 400,000 people who did need to update their registrations.   

Fonseca-Sabune spoke with me about the letters, and about her broader role in getting people more involved in civic life — on Election Day and all the other days of the year.

It's an issue WNYC and Gothamist has been focused on through our Ask a Reporter project. I relayed some of the barriers to participating in civic life that we've heard from our listeners and readers. Click play to listen.