#De Blasio fuels conspiracy theory about NYC ballot snafu

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday added fuel to a conspiracy theory that claims the printer responsible for the city Board of Elections’ mail-in ballot debacle tried to sabotage the vote because the vendor backs the GOP — even though the mixup was due to a mechanical error and the company gave contributions to upstate Republicans and Democrats.

When asked by a caller on WNYC radio Friday if the printer, Phoenix Graphics, attempted to “sabotage our democratic voting process,” de Blasio boosted the unsubstantiated claim.

“In this environment I don’t think anything can be regarded so simply as a coincidence. I think it should be investigated,” Hizzoner said.

“It seems awfully strange something this big and this mistaken could have happened,” he added.

Meanwhile, the city’s BOE Chairman Michael Ryan told Brooklyn Democratic leaders in a remote briefing Friday that a breakdown of the printer’s mail-sorting machine caused the fiasco that resulted in thousands of voters in the borough getting return envelopes with other people’s addresses on them.

Then a software upgrade lost the error logs.

“When they updated the software, all of the data that you could potentially have for a forensic analysis of what went wrong was lost,” Ryan explained.

“A similar problem happened in Nassau County, but the forensic data was not lost. And they were simply able to do a re-mail of 750-800 ballots to the voters. Unfortunately, that’s not the case here,” he said.

New ballot packages for the Nov. 3 election will be sent out by Oct. 9, Ryan said. Phoenix will cover the cost.

Phoenix donated to both Democrats and Republicans in counties north of the city– with GOP contenders getting three-quarters of the $100,000 in contributions over the last ten years, according to reports.

None of the donations went to any local politicians.

Under state law, each local Board of Election — including the city’s — is run by commissioners appointed by the Democratic and Republican parties. Defenders say the setup provides an essential check to protect the voting process. Opponents say it leads to wheeling and dealing that turns the agency into patronage-laden affairs that struggle to competently execute their mission.

Doug Kellner, the Democratic co-chairman of the state Board of Elections, told The Post earlier this week that Phoenix had a good reputation before this debacle and has been used by election agencies across New York.

Manhattan Democratic Councilwoman Carlina Rivera publicly chided the mayor for fueling conspiracies about the election.

“The fact is we waited too long to address the problems that plagued mail-in voting during this summer’s primary,” Rivera tweeted Friday.

“Our focus needs to be on making sure all NYers are able to vote in this election, not feeding into paranoia,” she wrote.