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NY Pandemic Primary Recap: Poll Problems, Absentee Ballot Chaos, And Races Too Close To Call
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Jun 24, 2020
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CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA/Shutterstock
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Jun 24, 2020
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New York’s first (and hopefully only) pandemic primary election is over. More than 471,000 votes were cast in person for the Democratic presidential contest, either during early voting or at poll sites on Tuesday, with the only decisive victor being the one Democrat still actively running for president: former Vice President Joe Biden.
In the rest of the contests across the city, initial trends suggest a surge in progressive momentum could lead to the ousting of long-serving incumbents like Reps. Eliot Engel and Carolyn Maloney, with similar trends holding up in state and local contests. That energy also appears to have thwarted a possible conservative upset by City Council Member Ruben Diaz Sr. in the race for the seat vacated by retiring Rep. Jose Serrano, where City Council Member Ritchie Torres holds a lead over his closest challenger, Assemblyman Michael Blake. Thousands of outstanding absentee ballots will play a major role in deciding all of these contests, when ballot counting begins June 30th.
But the story of the primary started with what happened at the polls. For those voters who did venture out on Tuesday, the experience was often marred by problems at poll sites. Voters took to social media early to report locations that were not open by 6 a.m., a problem that occurs in nearly every election day, but was apparently made worse this year by the coronavirus-inspired overnight subway shutdown.
While advocates including the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law requested the New York City Board of Elections extend the hours of at least four poll sites that opened hours after the start of voting, no concessions were made for voters.
Other problems were related to poll worker training. Numerous reports in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx about poll workers neglecting to give voters their presidential primary ballot and the ballot for their local congressional, state, and party contests forced the city BOE staff to send out a message to its workers advising them to correct that mistake immediately.
One of the most troublesome issues for voters was related to absentee ballots. While Governor Andrew Cuomo made changes to expand access to absentee ballots with the goal of reducing social interaction during the pandemic, the state and city BOE strained to keep up with the demand. Voters were allowed to request a ballot by phone, email or online, through New York City’s absentee ballot portal and the uptick in demand flooded the system.
State BOE officials released data Monday indicating that more than 1.7 million voters statewide requested an absentee ballot, compared to 157,885 absentee ballots requests for the 2016 presidential primary, a tenfold increase. But these numbers only tell part of the story.
Up until last week, the city BOE had been releasing data that showed the number of absentee ballot applications they had received and the number of ballots that went out to New York City voters. The data they reported last week, as of June 17th, is also what is included in the state’s current tally. At that point, at least 30,000 voters were awaiting their absentee ballots.
By Tuesday evening, while polls were still open citywide, the city BOE decided to publish a new and different set of absentee ballot data. Instead of making clear how many voters in New York City had applied for an absentee ballot and how many absentee ballots were mailed, they published data indicating only how many absentee ballots had been mailed to voters and how many ballots voters returned to the Board.
Based on that data, there is no way to determine the actual number of people who applied for an absentee ballot and did not receive one. Reports throughout the day on Tuesday suggest a substantial number of people, particularly those who sought to have their ballot mailed to a location outside the five boroughs, were disenfranchised if their application was submitted on time and their ballot never arrived. In some cases, those voters may have been ineligible to vote in the primary, because New York has a closed primary system, and only registered members of a party with a primary can vote. On Tuesday, that meant all registered Democrats, a handful of Republicans and some SAM party.
Absentee ballots will continue to roll in statewide and any that are postmarked June 23rd or earlier and received by the city BOE seven days after the election will be counted.
While the city BOE published initial data indicating the number of absentee ballots mailed out and returned by each contest, those numbers will be updated as more ballots are delivered.
Still, those tallies plus the early results tell a story of some surprising leads for challengers over their incumbent rivals. In the 16th congressional primary, which covers the northern Bronx and stretches into Westchester County, long-serving Congressman Engel faced a formidable challenge from Jamaal Bowman, a middle school principal who had the backing of the Justice Democrats, the same group that backed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her successful run against Joseph Crowley in 2018.
Based on the unofficial election and early voting results, Bowman held a lead with 62 percent of the vote over Engel at just 35 percent. By late Wednesday morning, Bowman declared victory.
“The world has changed. Congress needs to change too,” Bowman said in a statement. “But if we can take on entrenched power and wealthy interests here in Westchester and the Bronx, then we can do it all across this country. I’m a Black man who was raised by a single mother in a housing project. That story doesn’t usually end in Congress. But today, that 11-year old boy who was beaten by police is about to be your next Representative."
Earlier in the day, the Engel campaign put out its own statement demanding that all the absentee ballots be counted. In the Bronx portion of the district alone, the city BOE sent an estimated 24,887 absentee ballots to voters.
“With so many absentee ballots outstanding and many still coming in, we know that the full results of the primary won’t be known for some time. Congressman Engel is proud of his progressive record, and looks forward to the final tallies from the full Democratic electorate in the Bronx and Westchester,” a portion of the statement said.
In another surprisingly close contest, Rep. Carolyn Maloney held a slim 648-vote lead over challenger Suraj Patel in the 12th congressional district, which covers Manhattan’s Upper East Side and part of Queens. In that race, the city BOE reports it mailed out 78,819 absentee ballots and more than 11,000 of them have already been returned by voters. This razor-thin margin means the counting in this race may extend into the summer, with both candidates seeking support from election law aficionados should this race almost assuredly end up in court.
At least two incumbents appeared to weather their primary challenges. Both Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Yvette Clarke hold sizable leads in the unofficial election returns over their challengers.
What all of this means for November’s general election remains uncertain. New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams joined with Susan Lerner from the good government group Common Cause on Wednesday outside the city BOE’s main office to demand answers and improvements.
While Lerner credited the BOE with “mostly” meeting an impossible task of handling the unprecedented volume of absentee ballots during the pandemic, she urged lawmakers to plan better for November “to make sure the state hit hardest in the nation by coronavirus has a full say in the presidential election.”
Bronx State Senator Alessandra Biaggi has sponsored legislation that would ensure people could still vote absentee in the fall, since the Governor’s executive orders only applied to the June primary election. “Our chronically neglected and underfunded elections can't rise to this time of crisis and great change without sufficient direction, leadership, and most of all funding,” she added.
A spokesperson for the city BOE did not respond to a request for comment.
Tagged
COVID-19
Board of Elections
primary
election 2020
elections
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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