Gavin Murphy showed up at his polling place in Greenwich Village to vote in the June 23 primary.  But he would have preferred to vote by mail with an absentee ballot.

 

“I received my ballot too late to make the deadline,” he said, and he wasn’t alone. Many New Yorker did not receive their absentee ballots in time to vote by mail. 

The New York City Board of Elections (BOE), an appointed board which runs elections in the city, seemed to have a big problem keeping up with the switch to absentee voting.  The New York Times reported that three days before the primary, 29,000 voters who had requested ballots had failed to receive them. Others reported on social media that they had received ballots with no return envelope, or with no ballot.

My husband and I received the applications for absentee ballots, filled them in and mailed them at the same time. He received his ballot the Saturday before election day, filled out his ballot and put it in the mail by Monday’s deadline.  It needed to be postmarked by June 22, the day before election day, in order to be counted.  My ballot failed to arrive. That meant I had to vote in person.

At my polling place in Greenwich Village, there were few people voting.  You can say that was a good thing for social distancing. But if people had trouble getting ballots and then didn’t show up to vote that doesn’t bode well for the November election. If this was a dress rehearsal, there’s a lot of work to do before the big show.

In the Bronx, some voters complained about long lines and long waits.  A woman who posts as Chan said it took two hours to get to vote. 

The polls stay open until 9 p.m. and as we write this, there is still time to vote. But BOE’s handling of the absentee ballots puts the spotlight on an election board that has had a history of errors with  wrongly purged voters, broken machines and long lines.

 Voters like Gavin Murphy want the BOE to get its act together before absentee ballot applications go out for the general election.  “If we are going to be prepared for the actual election in November,” he said, “we need much stronger infrastructure to be able to deliver on the actual vote by mail. Many people are going to be a little concerned about their health and they should be able to exercise their right to vote without having to sacrifice health concerns.”

The Board of Elections did not respond to our request for comment.