Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Long Lines Persist At Some Poll Sites As NYC Enters Drizzly Day 3 Of Early Voting
By
Jen Chung
,
David Cruz
and
Brigid Bergin
Published Oct 26, 2020
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
Jen Chung
By
Jen Chung
,
David Cruz
and
Brigid Bergin
Published Oct 26, 2020
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
New Yorkers came out in droves on Monday morning to cast their ballots during the third day of early voting in the presidential election, and while there were once again long lines reported outside some poll sites, at least one location was reconfigured to help speed up the process.
NYC's 88 polling sites opened at 7 a.m. on Monday, three hours earlier than the weekend's start time, giving voters the opportunity to cast ballots before going to work. (On Tuesday, they'll open at 12 p.m.—check early voting hours by day here).
By 5:30 a.m., early bird voters were already lining up in the pre-dawn drizzle outside the Brooklyn Museum, ninety minutes before the polls would open.
At Lincoln Center a few hours later, voters formed a line that snaked around two blocks. Voter Shelly Hall joined the line around 7:45 a.m. "It's unbelievable, this is my second try at voting, and I said today I'm not putting it off," Hall said. "I saw the lines two other days and it was just ridiculous. But I said, I have to get in there, I have to do it."
Early voting numbers broke records across the state. More than 422,000 people voted statewide, which is 166,000 more voters than in all nine days of early voting last year. Through Sunday, nearly 200,000 people participated in early voting in NYC—about 93,000 on Saturday and 100,000 on Sunday. The turnout in the first two days of early voting, with 193,915 ballots cast, is more than three times the total for all nine days last year, when just 60,110 people voted in a less high-profile general election featuring proposed changes to the City Charter and a noncompetitive Public Advocate's race.
So far, the city’s first weekend of early voting makes up only 7% of all those who voted in the 2016 general presidential election. (Early voting was not an option in that election.) In terms of turnout of all eligible voters, it’s just under 4%.
On Sunday, Laura Wood, senior adviser and counsel for the mayor’s Democracy NYC office, said that the New York City Board of Elections needed to make adjustments to reduce wait times in the days ahead. “Adding more machines and more poll workers now seems like a no brainer,” Wood told Gothamist/WNYC.
Katrin Ames, who had been on the Lincoln Center line since 6:45 a.m., also thought Monday would be less crowded. "I intentionally didn’t come on the weekend, I thought there’d be fewer people on a weekday, which I think was marginally accurate,” she said with a chuckle. After about two hours, she was 10 people away from the polling site's door and still in high spirits.
"I’ve been waiting four years to do this, I’d be happy to wait 4 hours," Ames declared.
Listen to reporter Brigid Bergin discuss the first days of early voting on WNYC:
Emma Armstrong was waiting on line before she headed to work—and even convinced a friend to accompany her. "Early voting is a privilege to have in New York," said Armstrong. "A lot of people don't have that privilege." She works at a hospital, and she said the number of doctors who don't get to vote, because they have surgeries scheduled on Election Day, was staggeringly high.
Angry officials, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, condemned the Board of Elections for the long lines outside many polling sites this weekend.
“There is no place in the United States of America where two-, three-, four-hour waits to vote is acceptable,’’ Ocasio-Cortez told reporters on Sunday. “And just because it is happening in a blue state doesn’t mean it isn’t voter suppression."
At a news conference on Monday morning, Mayor Bill de Blasio wasn't ready to call it voter suppression, chalking it up instead to incompetency carried out by the New York City Board of Elections, which has a history of nepotism and election fiascos. (State election law requires each borough/county to appoint a Democratic commissioner and Republican commissioner, who are nominated by the counties' party bosses.)
"I would say when the election authorities don't make voting easy, they discourage people from voting. I don't think there's a conspiracy at the Board of Elections," said de Blasio. "I think there's incompetence at the Board of Elections, and I think the Board of Elections is just the wrong organization, the way they're structured, it should be abolished. It should be replaced by either a city agency or a state agency, a professional modern agency that runs the elections, like we would run any other city service."
De Blasio, who did not tour any early voting sites over the weekend, said he and First Lady Chirlane McCray plan to vote Tuesday. He recommended that the early voting hours be expanded over the weekend, and said the BOE should put more ballot scanners in place at poll sites seeing long wait times.
Outside the Jackie Robinson Educational Complex in East Harlem, poll workers had to ask a crossing guard to stop harassing voters waiting outside, according to a voter named Marc who asked that we withhold his last name. According to Marc, the crossing guard was aggressively asking voters standing on a line who they were planning on voting for in the presidential election.
"She was going on, with the questioning, and somebody answered her, and she turned around and said, 'Well, you know who's gonna win.' And they were like, 'Well, who's gonna win? And she goes, 'You don't know who's gonna win. You know Trump's gonna win,'" Marc said. "She wasn't looking for conversation, that's for sure. She was testing her point of view."
The NYPD, which oversees the agency's crossing guard division, did not immediately respond for comment. On Saturday, an NYPD officer was caught on video using a loudspeaker to say "Trump 2020" while on duty. The officer has since been suspended without pay.
At other polling sites, voters commented that their lines moved quickly and they were in and out in under an hour. Vivian Costandy Michael arrived at Madison Square Garden at 9 a.m. and was out before 9:30 a.m. "The polling station was well-organized and orderly," she described, noting she saw poll workers at every step of the process. "All voters I saw were masked and socially distancing."
Still, Michael added, "I was prepared to wait for several hours if necessary."
Tell us about your early voting experience—email us [email protected].
Tagged
election 2020
early voting
elections
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
Read more
David Cruz
David is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
Read more
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.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
6-year-old girl breaks leg after getting hit by falling bricks in Queens
The girl was walking with her mother in Maspeth on Thursday. The Department of Buildings cited the owner of a garage for “failure to maintain” it.
By
Charles Lane
Published Oct 23, 2026 at 4:30 p.m. ET
Mamdani extends ban on permits for new street fairs due to NYPD overtime
Critics say the moratorium harms businesses in neighborhoods without a tradition of street fairs.
By
Carol Chen
News
Mamdani extends ban on permits for new street fairs due to NYPD overtime
Critics say the moratorium harms businesses in neighborhoods without a tradition of street fairs.
By
Carol Chen
Inside the Midtown Bus Terminal rebuild: Decks over Lincoln Tunnel approach, a new park
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Black couple seeking Queens apartment sues over racist text from broker
By
Brittany Kriegstein
NJ early voting begins Saturday. Here's everything you need to know.
By
Mike Hayes
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .