All Chaos broke out in New York as the city’s Board of Elections was painfully unprepared for Tuesday’s primaries as equipment was missing, voting locations were changed without notice, election sites failed to open hours after scheduled and at least three voting sites did not have any Republican ballots.
According to the Post, 62-year-old Ed Gavin arrived at his polling site in the Bronx at about 8:00 a.m. to cast his vote for GOP gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino, but when he checked in, he was given a Democrat ballot instead,
“My party never came up, my political preferences were never discussed … I opened the sleeve and I saw the names of Tom Suozzi, Kathy Hochul and Jumaane Williams. These were all Democrats for governor. I flipped it over because I thought maybe the Republicans were on the back but there were no Republicans.”
Gavin was then told that they don’t “have any Republican ballots’ something Gavin found to be very concerning,
“This is the most important gubernatorial election of my lifetime because crime is on the ballot, bail reform is on the ballot, criminal justice is on the ballot,” he said, adding “[Former Gov. Andrew] Cuomo essentially ruined this state … with the state of the city right now, we need a Republican in power.”
Poll workers admitted to not having Republican ballots and ‘found’ them only after being confronted by the Post,
“We couldn’t find the ballots earlier, but we have them now,” said a poll worker.
The same thing happened in Harlem when Eric Larsen told the Post that an election worker gave him a Democrat Primary ballot, then told him that the Republican Primary wasn’t being held that day,
“I know that Central Harlem is predominantly Democratic, but I found it hard to believe that a polling location even in a mostly Democratic location wouldn’t have had enough Republican ballots by the middle of the day on primary day. I did eventually get one … [but] they gave me a hard time.”
Over in Bushwick, Brooklyn Candic Glove went through the very same thing,
“I was handed a Democratic ballot and I realized when I opened the folder and I saw Kathy Hochul’s name.”
She told the poll worker that she was not a Democrat to which the poll worker replied, “We don’t have any Republican ballots.”
Other potential voters took to twitter to describe what they were going through as they attempted to vote during the primary, Some described no key to open the poll site, elderly women with walkers being turned away, the Board of Elections failing to deliver equipment to a south Brooklyn location and technical difficulties preventing people from voting.
Despite the major debacles, the BOE claimed everything ran smoothly and Mayor Eric Adams saying that it’s workers “did a great job” and that everyone “makes mistakes.”
