#Ballot screw-ups prevent voting in some NYC primary races

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Voters at the election site in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Paul Martinka

Major election snafus shortchanged democracy in New York City on Tuesday when poll workers failed to distribute the proper ballots — preventing some voters from taking part in both the Democratic presidential primary and local races.

The problem was apparently so widespread that the Board of Elections tweeted out a warning shortly before noon that said, “In the Democratic primary, voters may have a 2 page ballot!”

“Please check http://nyc.pollsitelocator.com to view your sample ballot,” it added.

In Queens, where Democratic Assemblyman Ron Kim is being challenged by NYPD Sgt. Steven Lee, a poll worker at Junior High School 189 in Flushing said some voters only got one ballot.

“There were two ballots, we didn’t know that. Early this morning, we just gave one ballot. So some people didn’t get two,” the worker said. “We found an hour into it. We didn’t get training because of the virus.”

The worker’s disturbing revelations were cut short by a BOE supervisor, Stella Lu, who insisted everything was fine. “There was just confusion because we are short people. We have half the staff today,” she said.

“The people who had this issue actually got the ballot. It was only because people had to wait a little bit longer.”

On Twitter, Isiah James — who is challenging US Rep. Yvette Clark (D-Brooklyn) — lashed out at the BOE and included a screenshot of a message that said voters were being given “misprinted ballots that do not have the congressional race on them at PS 22 in Brooklyn.”

“@BOENYC y’all need to fix this ASAP! This is not acceptable,” James wrote. “You’ve had months to get this right. Why are voters messaging about this total screw up on your part.”

Kenneth Lee, a candidate in next year’s race to succeed outgoing city Councilman Mathieu Eugene (D-Brooklyn), tweeted an unconfirmed report there were no longer ballots available at the polling place at the High School for Service & Learning at Erasmus in Flatbush.

Kristen Clarke of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law said her organization received “reports that voters only received one, not two ballots.”

“That seems to be a training issue with polling workers,” she said.

Common Cause New York also said that some voters “received incomplete ballots,” with Executive Director Susan Lerner saying it’s among the issues the group would “aggressively” address with election officials.

The BOE didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.