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Voters Left With Little Recourse When Absentee Ballots Don’t Arrive
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Jun 23, 2020
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By
Brigid Bergin
Published Jun 23, 2020
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When Governor Andrew Cuomo issued executive orders expanding access to absentee ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic, the goal was to protect the health and safety of voters and Board of Elections staff tasked with running the primary election.
More than 1.7 million voters statewide took advantage of this policy change, according to the most recent data from the New York State Board of Elections. That’s compared to just 157,885 who filed absentee ballot applications for the 2016 presidential primary.
What we will not know for at least another week is how many people actually received their ballots and mailed them back to their respective Board of Elections. That’s because under New York State election law, those ballots are not touched until a week after the election.
In New York City, reports are flooding Twitter of voters who say they applied for their absentee ballot by the June 16th deadline, and yet, no ballot ever arrived.
The most recent data from the New York City Board of Elections is as of last Wednesday June 17th, when they reported that they mailed ballots to more than 95 percent of people who applied for one, with 30,000 people still waiting to have their application processed.
Gothamist/WNYC has repeatedly requested updated absentee ballot data.
Manoush Zamarodi told Gothamist/WNYC that she applied for an absentee ballot based on her registration address here in the city. But she asked for the ballot to be sent to an address outside of her county. Here is the type of response the @BOENYC was offering to voters on Twitter on Tuesday. (Click on the image in the second Tweet to read the BOE's automated DM.)
City Councilmember Helen Rosenthal said her office has received 57 emails from constituents complaining that they never received their absentee ballot. One of those complaints was from Michael Lederer, an attorney. He explained that he applied for absentee ballots for him and his wife on May 10th through the dedicated email address the city BOE initially set up to field online requests (they later created an online portal).
He followed up again on June 16th, the deadline to request an absentee ballot, and submit a subsequent application, since he and his wife were still waiting for their ballots. In his email to Rosenthal sent on Monday, Lederer shared his concerns about being disenfranchised.
“As of this morning, I have not received an absentee ballot, nor has my wife. The deadline for mailing the ballot is tomorrow. In light of how far in advance I submitted our applications for the ballots, I am not optimistic that they will arrive in time for the primary,” Lederer wrote.
It turns out, Lederer is actually one of the lucky ones. His absentee ballot arrived on Tuesday. “I was overjoyed,” he told Gothamist/WNYC.
But then he was again confused, since the absentee ballot said it needed to be postmarked the day before the election. The state did in fact change the postmark deadline to June 23rd, the day of the primary, but ballots were printed before that change was made and it continues to be a source of confusion to voters.
“You would think that that message would have gotten out,” Lederer said.
“Too many UWS primary voters have been disenfranchised this election, whether by no notice poll site changes or not receiving their absentee ballots in time,” Rosenthal said on Tuesday. “There are so many reasons why we need an efficient easy voting system and we are not there yet. Voting must be brought into the 21st century. There’s too much at stake.”
Common Cause New York sent poll site monitors out on bikes and in cars around New York City on Tuesday. On a call with other election advocates, the group’s executive director Susan Lerner said the complaints they were receiving from people who voted at poll sites fell largely into two categories: sites opened late and poll workers failed to give voters both their presidential ballot and their ballot for congressional, state and party contests.
While there were some last minute poll site changes in New York City, Lerner still credited the BOE for opening more than 1,000 poll sites citywide. She said Common Cause was also monitoring reports out of Chenango County in upstate New York, where the only polling place available to voters there is the Sheriff’s office.
“And in order to be allowed into the Sheriff’s office you had to answer questions, have your temperature taken and show and ID,” Lerner said. “This is not something we want to see repeated in November.”
Common Cause is part of a group of advocates monitoring election issues through the Election Protection hotline (1-866-OUR-VOTE a.k.a. 1-866-687-8683). While Lerner said they are monitoring issues at poll sites, she noted that there was really only one solution for those voters still waiting for their absentee ballots Tuesday, “The recourse is to vote in person.”
Polls are open in NYC until 9 p.m. on Tuesday. Find your polling site here, and check out our live updates from today's primary.
Tagged
absentee ballots
Board of Elections
primary day
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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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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