An editorial in the New York Post explained the general opposition against closed primaries and New York’s early registration deadline.
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Twelve states and the District of Columbia have earlier deadlines to switch parties than to register for the first time, but only two of them, Kentucky and New Hampshire, had cutoffs to change parties (for those already registered with one) more than 100 days before their primary or caucus. While whoever wins here on Tuesday won’t lock up the United States presidential nomination, candidates who lose will find it much harder to be seen as viable contenders. Officials expect high voter turnout.
Polls opened at noon in New York’s presidential primary. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat who shared her story on social media, said she found out that she would not be allowed to vote because her party affiliation was removed in the aftermath of the storm. He also noted that there had not been any protests as he headed to vote, reminding him that “there’s a lot of love in NY”, he said.
“This has been a joy during the last two weeks to be here all over the state and I hope everyone gets out to vote”, she said. In a group of counties including all of New York City, polling hours are 6 a.m.to 9 p.m. When it comes to encouraging voters, the rules in this supposedly progressive and forward-looking state are among the most restrictive and regressive in the country. The Democratic Party restricts its primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders to registered Democrats and to voters listed as “no party preference”.
“The scale of this is probably bigger than any of us know at this time”, Nelson said, noting that other states have had similar problems.
Generally, Conklin said, poll workers don’t make a “big deal” of it – rather, they will ask you to remove your hat or button or cover up a pro-candidate shirt. According to WYNC’s analysis, “the number of active registered Democrats dropped there by 63,558 voters between November 2015 and April 2016”.
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Volunteers at the school were elections were taking place told voters to place their ballots in a slot, and they would all get processed later.
