The Board of Elections office released a statement Thursday evening, saying the Commissioners’ Executive Committee of the Board of Elections voted to suspend Borough Office Chief Clerk Diane Haslett-Rudiano without pay.
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The issues varied from voters being told that they were not registered at all, or that they were not registered with either the Democrats or the Republicans.
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. Certainly there are states that have open primaries and anybody can vote. “Why were people told they were in the wrong polling place time and time again?” Horner said the outcomes of the investigations into the Brooklyn potential voter disenfranchisement by the Attorney General and New York City Comptroller could change that.
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.
Both the city comptroller and the attorney general are investigating the unprecedented election irregularities.
The battle for Brooklyn has also come under scrutiny after it was revealed that 125,000 of the borough’s voters had been purged from the system ahead of election day.
Ryan initially said the cards met legal requirements because, while the board must inform voters of state and local elections, “there is no such requirement about federal presidential primaries”.
New York’s issues follow voting chaos in other states this primary season, in many cases caused by new voter-ID laws and cuts to election budgets.
Voters called or emailed in more than 1,000 complaints to Schneiderman’s voter hotline Tuesday, many of which were from voters who believed they were registered but couldn’t be found on the rolls.
A resident casts her ballot at the P.S. 81 polling location during the presidential primary vote in Queens on Tuesday, April 19, 2016.
“If necessary, we will initiate inquiries in additional areas of the State where voting irregularities appeared unusually high”, the attorney general said.
Many voters in the Election Justice USA lawsuit said that they had registered with a party before the deadline, but that their voter registration was either never updated, was entered improperly, or was changed without their consent.
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“The perception that numerous voters may have been disenfranchised undermines the integrity of the entire electoral process and must be fixed”, said Mayor Bill de Blasio.
