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New York Voters Reporting Irregularities At Polls

By Reno Berkeley
Published on: 06:44 PST, Apr 19, 2016

The polls are open in the state of New York and voters are already reporting irregularities. Thousands of voters claim their registration was mysteriously switched from Democrat to independent or Republican. Some even discovered they were not in the voter rolls at all. Even worse, some voters claim that their voter registration was changed fraudulently.

Several seeks ago, a voter from Queens discovered he had been unregistered and went to the Queens County Board of Elections to sort out his situation. While there, a young woman was discussing an apparent forgery in her own registration.

A video posted to YouTube compared the woman’s actual signature to her alleged signature on a form in which her address was changed. The two signatures bear little resemblance to each other, which could indicate the change should have been applied to another woman with the same name. The address change had taken her off the voting polls for her area, and she was there to address the discrepancy. The form also showed her as a registered Republican, and not a Democrat.

In Brooklyn, a borough that is believed to heavily favor hometown candidate Bernie Sanders, voter rolls were purged, leaving up to 126,000 people unregistered. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has demanded an answer for this drastic, seven percent drop in registered Democrats that has left many potential voters wondering if they should bother heading out to the polls.

WNYC News first discovered the drop in registration, where 63,000 people were kicked off voting rolls. The news outlet later discovered the actual number of those whose registration was changed or deactivated as closer to 126,000. De Blasio was rightfully concerned abut the high number and expressed dismay at the recent development.

“This number surprises me. I admit that Brooklyn has a lot of transient population — that’s obvious. Lot of people moving in, lot of people moving out. That might account for some of it. But I’m confused since so many people have moved in, that the number would move that much in the negative direction.”

The borough, which is the largest in the New York City area, has a population of about 2.6 million people. Its Board of Elections officials explained the reason for the large purge was due to a backlog resulting from the BOE’s inability to purge voter roles except at certain times of the year.

At several polls, people reported broken machines and late opening times. A Reddit user posted a thread and video of his polling location where all voting machines were inexplicably broken. Those people should have been offered regular ballots to be put through a machine later.

Even New York city resident Ben Casselman, of FiveThirtyEight, reported on Twitter that when he arrived at his polling station it wasn’t open. He discovered later that the late opening was because no coordinator was on site. Most people who showed up at the polls stayed in line, and as a result, a long line of people were waiting to vote.

In New York City, in particular, voters are reporting issues with not being in the roll books when they arrive at the polls to vote. A Facebook post described it as an attempt to discourage several people from voting.

“The woman at the table tells us that her book only has one person registered for my election district. The supervisor then tells us that we will all need to fill out provisional ballots. I was like, ‘No. No, we are not taking those, we are all registered, we’re not doing that.’ and the girl in front of me started talking about how she was going to call the election watchdogs about voter suppression, and then suddenly, miraculously, they happen to search and find our book, with all of our names in it!”

Because of the large number of people experiencing issues with their voting registration, advocacy group Election Justice USA filed an emergency lawsuit on Monday requesting relief for the thousands of people who believe they were wrongfully purged. The lawsuit is asking that New York become an open primary state so all eligible voters can participate at the polls.

Shyla Nelson, spokeswoman for the group, encouraged disenfranchised New York voters to head to the polls anyway.

“Our expectations are for a favorable ruling in court tomorrow morning, and that our request for declaratory judgment will allow all eligible but disenfranchised voters to vote and be counted. We want provisional ballots to be counted as well.”

The irregularities at the polls are affecting both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton supporters.

Voters who show up at the polls and discover they are no longer in the voter roll book should ask poll workers to check other books. Voters may also call and report irregularities at the polls by calling 1-866-3692 (1-866-VOTE-NYC). People are also advised to only complete an affidavit if they are certain they were registered Democrats.

For more information, voters may call the New York Elections Office at 518-474-6220. Bernie Sanders supporters are encouraged to call the campaign hotline at 347-379-4298 if they witness any issues at the polls such as exceedingly long lines, voter suppression, or misinformation. Other crucial numbers to call are the Fair Elections Legal Network at 202-331-1550 and New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s hotline at 1-800-771-7755.

[Photo by Mark Lennihan/AP]

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