#Voters can deliver ballots at drop-off boxes on Election Day

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The new drop-off ballot box unveiled by the New York City Board of Elections.
New York City Board of Elections

The New York City Board of Elections on Tuesday unveiled the design of the drop-off ballot box where COVID-19-concerned voters can safely deliver their mail-in ballots at 1,300 polling sites during the Nov. 3 general election.

The drop-off boxes will be placed at the board’s borough offices, all early-voting site locations and 1,300 polling sites on Election Day.

The drop-off box has red, white and blue colors.

The top of the box is painted blue and contains slit opening with instructions in white that says: “DROP OFF YOUR ABSENTEE BALLOT HERE.”

Appearing on the side of the drop box in red is a message that says “VOTE SAFE NYC.”

It also shows an image of the green Statue of Liberty wearing a blue mask accompanied by the election board’s red-white-and blue “Vote NYC” logo.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, meanwhile, announced that he’s signing an executive order ensuring that drop-off boxes are available at more than 300 early voting sites statewide from Oct. 24, to Nov. 1. as well as at county election board offices.

“It’s our way of developing a drop box system,” Cuomo said. “Ballots can be dropped off at your county BOE Office starting now, at Early Voting sites from Oct 24-Nov 1, & at polling sites on Election Day.”

The drop-box system is aimed at reducing reliance on voters mailing absentee ballots via the Post Office after delays in processing and delivering tens of thousands of ballots marred the June 23 New York primary races.

The mail-in ballots of more than 84,000 New York City Democrats who sought to vote in the presidential primaries were disqualified — or 21 percent of the 403,103 sent. The mail-in ballots were tossed out for arriving late, lacking a postmark or failing to include a voter’s signature or other defects.

In order to curb the spread of COVID-19 Cuomo signed an order allowing voters to submit a mail-in ballot. But election officials never before had to process that many absentee ballots and were unprepared for the onslaught during the primary, critics said. It took six weeks to certify the results.

State election officials testified last month that they expected to get deluged with 5 million mail-in ballots, or four times more than the 1.2 million received during the primary, during the Nov. 3 general election.

Under state law, ballots may be hand-delivered no later than 9 p.m. on Election Day.

The city BOE has always accepted absentee ballots at our poll sites and offices — but not hundreds of thousands of ballots.

In a statement, the BOE said providing a ballot box allows for the board to promote a safe voting  process “not only for voters, but for our dedicated poll workers and staff as well.”

“Guidelines on procedures to hand-deliver ballots safely, along with postmark deadlines will be shared next week. Ballots will be mailed beginning the 3rd week of September,” the board said.