The state Attorney General’s office is opening an investigation into voting irregularities after receiving over 1,000 complaints from New Yorkers in the wake of Tuesday’s botched presidential primary.
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Stringer said his office had received reports of polling stations that failed to open on time and were unable to tell voters when they would be operational.
Michael J. Ryan, the executive director of the elections board, said that while approximately 125,000 were removed from voter rolls in Brooklyn since the fall, some 63,000 people were added.
Meanwhile, city Controller Scott Stringer, who had previously announced he’d audit the fumbling city Board of Elections, opened an online complaint line on Wednesday where voters who had problems can submit their complaints directly to his office. It’s understandable that an unaffiliated voter wouldn’t know that the state required them to switch their registration to Democratic to participate that far out, especially since no one was predicting that New York’s primary would be as competitive as it was.
Voters in NY can be purged for a variety of reasons, including death, a felony charge or for leaving the state.
Clinton and Republican front-runner Donald Trump won their primaries in NY on Tuesday by wide margins, meaning any alleged discrepancy is unlikely to affect the outcome of either race.
Shyla Nelson is the spokesperson for Election Justice USA, which was in federal court Tuesday arguing on behalf of 200 New Yorkers who said they were erroneously taken off the voting rolls or had their party affiliation switched without their consent.
Bill de Blasio, the mayor of NY, condemned the voting irregularities and called on voting officials to reverse the problems.
A new voter had to register before March 25 to cast a ballot Tuesday, while independents and minor-party members couldn’t vote in the primaries at all.
The board did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Why did 60,000 people receive notices to vote that didn’t have the primary date? VICE News called the phone number they are providing several times on Wednesday, but those calls went to voicemail, purportedly for the Sanders voter hotline.
“While I congratulate Secretary Clinton, I must say that I am really concerned about the conduct of the voting process in NY state, and I hope that that process will change in the future”, Sanders told reporters.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who lost the NY primary by a whopping 16 points, raised concerns about the voting issues in a brief discussion with reporters on the tarmac in Burlington, Vermont, late Tuesday night.
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Access to the ballot box became a contentious issue nationwide long before primary season started, with many Democrats arguing Republican officials are trying to scare away voters with restrictive ID laws, including in North Carolina and Virginia.
