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City Proposes 2020 Early Voting Sites That Spare The Children
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Brigid Bergin
Published Dec 17, 2019
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Tod Seelie / Gothamist
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Dec 17, 2019
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City Hall officials on Tuesday presented a slate of 53 sites available for early voting next year to the New York City Board of Elections (BOE) -- and this time there were no schools listed. The de Blasio administration’s DemocracyNYC office specifically identified one or more alternative sites to replace each of the 33 schools used during this past election after local pushback.
The move to find non-school sites for early voting was prompted by outcry from educators, parents, and elected officials over the loss of facilities including gymnasiums and cafeterias for over a week earlier this year, as well as overall security concerns.
“We’ve discussed before that there are alternatives and we provided this list to move from the theoretical to the actual,” Ayirini Fonseca-Sabune, the city’s Chief Democracy Officer, told Gothamist/WNYC.
Those disruptions would be worse in 2020 because the early-voting periods for the Democratic presidential primary in April and the state and federal primary June coincide with mandatory state exams.
The state passed early voting legislation at the start of the legislative session this year. For the first time ever, voters could cast their ballots early for nine days from October 26th to November 3rd. Many officials described this election as a “warm-up” for the packed election calendar in 2020, when there will be at least three citywide elections with early voting (the presidential primary on April 28th, the state and federal primary on June 23rd, and the general election on November 3rd).
At this point, City Hall has secured commitments from 18 of the 53 sites who confirmed their willingness to host early voting for both primary elections in the spring. All the sites will need to be inspected by the city BOE to determine if they meet the accessibility requirements set by state election law.
One of the proposed sites is Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, which would replace Columbus High School, one of the schools used for early voting this year.
“While we have not yet made our final decision about the specific early voting location, our intent will be to provide this service in a space that is both well marked and easily accessible,” Barbara Deiorio, Associate Executive Director for NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi said in statement. “We are honored to support opportunities to make their voices heard by exercising their right to vote.”
Of the 53 sites on the city’s list, 21 of those locations have served as poll sites in the past. The list includes eight sites in the Bronx, 21 in Brooklyn, 14 in Manhattan and 10 in Staten Island. There were no sites proposed for Queens because it was the only borough that did not use any city public schools for early voting.
Ultimately, the city BOE will select all the poll sites for early voting and the general election. But the city BOE did make an explicit request for input via their website from anyone who could propose additional locations. At a state legislative hearing last month about the first election period with early voting, city BOE Executive Director Mike Ryan said all levels of government needed to step up.
“This has to be an all hands on deck approach with respect to site assessment and with respect to site selection,” Ryan told state lawmakers.
State law requires local BOE’s to select their early voting sites by March 15th. But city BOE officials have said they plan to move faster because of the upcoming special election for Queens Borough President in March.
The city BOE set up an email address through its website for anyone to submit addresses for possible early voting locations. BOE officials plan to review the full list of submissions its collects before it makes its final designations.
Find below the full list of proposed non-school early voting sites from City Hall and a joint letter from the Department of Education and DemocracyNYC office to the New York City Board of Elections.
DNYC_DOE Alternative EV Sit... by Brigid Bergin on Scribd
Letter From DOE DemocracyNYC by Brigid Bergin on Scribd
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election 2020
Brigid Bergin
Brigid Bergin is an award-winning senior reporter on the People and Power desk. She is fiercely committed to telling stories that help people engage and support democracy. In 2022, she hosted a live, ten-week call-in politics show ahead of the midterm elections called The People's Guide to Power. Brigid's reporting in 2017 included some of the first coverage of a political newcomer now known as AOC. In 2016, she broke the news of a voter purge in Brooklyn just days before New York’s presidential primary, triggering city, state and federal investigations. Brigid also guest hosts The Brian Lehrer Show and All Of It. She graduated from the University at Albany and the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-723-4719.
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