New York: Primary Voter Purge Still Under Investigation Amid Calls For Reform | Observer

The Empire State is a Democratic Party stronghold and was a vital turning point in the primaries. Yet by the end of April, the New York Democratic primary had the second lowest voter turnout (19.7 percent) of all Democratic primaries, behind Louisiana. Though Hillary Clinton had a comfortable lead in pledged delegates, Sen. Bernie Sanders was experiencing a surge, winning the previous seven out of eight states. A potential win in New York could have proved to be a catalyst for Sanders’ comeback, but the foundation of the New York Democratic Party was not set up in his favor. The primary was constricted by rules that promoted voter suppression, coupled with issues that have yet to be explained or adequately addressed. Some 126,000 voters were inexplicably purged from voter rolls in Brooklyn during the Democratic primary. The New York Attorney General’s Office would not comment on the purge as it is still under investigation. Two election officials, Diane Haslett-Rudiano and Betty-Ann Canizio Aquil, were suspended in the wake of the controversy. But the purge was just one of many issues that arose during the primary, most of which occurred in the New York City area, where Clinton’s victory in the state primary was solidified.

New York: Schneiderman calls for voting overhaul | The Hill

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) will introduce a sweeping package of reforms to the Empire State’s voter registration and election laws when the legislature reconvenes next year. In a report issued Tuesday, Schneiderman said he will push legislators to adopt an opt-out voter registration system, in which any eligible citizen is registered to vote during interactions with state agencies unless they proactively decline. Similar systems have registered millions of new voters in Oregon and California. Schneiderman also said he wants to allow New York voters to obtain an absentee ballot without having to offer an excuse and to allow voters to cast ballots in person for two weeks ahead of Election Day. While early and absentee voting is a critical element of each party’s strategy for winning swing states such as Florida, North Carolina and Nevada, Northeastern states have resisted pushes to ease voting ahead of Election Day. Like New York, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware and Pennsylvania all require voters to offer an excuse before obtaining an absentee ballot, and none offer in-person early voting. “The right to vote is the right that protects all other rights. New York must become a national leader by protecting and expanding voting rights throughout the state,” Schneiderman said.

New York: Schneiderman Says Flawed Election Procedures Marred State’s Primary | Wall Street Journal

New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Tuesday that flawed election procedures and laws led to what he called an unprecedented number of voting complaints during the state’s April presidential primary. In announcing the results of his inquiry into voting complaints, Mr. Schneiderman said his office’s voter hotline received 1,500 calls around the primary, “10 times the previous high mark.” About two-thirds of the complaints stemmed from barriers created by voter-registration rules and practices, he said. Twenty percent of the complaints involved rules or laws related to the voting process, such as reduced poll hours in some counties and voters confused about polling places that had moved. He said 12 counties, including the five that make up New York City, account for more than 80% of the complaints statewide. “The voting issues we uncovered during the April primary were widespread, systemic and unacceptable,” said Mr. Schneiderman, a Democrat. He said 2.9 million New Yorkers, or about a fifth of those eligible to vote in the state, cast ballots in the primary. The New York State Board of Elections didn’t respond to requests for comment.

New York: New Yorkers sue for the right to take ‘ballot selfies’ | New York Post

A trio of New Yorkers are suing the Board of Elections in hopes of making it perfectly legal to snap a selfie in a voting booth — which is a big no-no in the Empire State and elsewhere around the country. The suit, filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, argues that “ballot selfies” — or the act of taking a photo with a ballot and then publishing it on social media — should be allowed on election day because they are a valid expression of one’s first amendment rights. “What they want to be able to do is show the photographs to their Facebook friends and Twitter followers,” the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Leo Glickman, told The Post.

New York: The Gentleman Rests, New Opera About the 2000 Election | Broadway World

The Gentleman Rests is a concert performance of a new opera depicting the special session of congress in 2001 in which the Congressional Black Caucus attempted to halt the certification of Florida’s votes for the contested presidential election due to alleged disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of Floridians. Composer Dave Ruder (thingNY) sets transcripts of the congressional session to music for five vocalists, viola, trombone, Rhodes piano and bassoon, including the ironic drama of Al Gore (as President of the Senate) following congressional protocol by gaveling over each objecting Black Caucus member, hastening the end of his presidential ambitions. … After two months of post-election chaos in Florida in late 2000, the congressional session depicted in Ruder’s opera was the final step declaring Bush the winner. The Congressional Black Caucus repeatedly tried to raise objections about the results from Florida, citing widespread disenfranchisement and irregularities (that, as usual in the history of US voting, impacted African-Americans hardest), and each objection was turned away because no senator would second them.

New York: G.O.P. Voters Urged to Select Dead Assemblyman in New York Race | The New York Times

Even in death, State Assemblyman Bill Nojay, a Republican from the Rochester area who fatally shot himself in a city cemetery last week, seems likely to win the primary election for his seat on Tuesday. Rarely has a candidate died so close to Election Day. And even as political insiders and Mr. Nojay’s friends dissect his final days, trying to unravel the circumstances surrounding his suicide, his continued presence on the ballot has turned what was supposed to be a simple race into an Albany aberration born of an odd, little-noticed portion of the electoral rule book. Voters are being urged to cast their ballots for a dead man. Three men in a room are preparing to pick his political heir. The funeral has yet to be held, but the struggle to replace him is already on.

New York: For disabled voters, strength in numbers brings political clout | Albany Times Union

For Dustin Jones, hailing a taxi is more than just flagging down a cab on the street corner or punching in his coordinates on his phone. So Jones, a wheelchair user and founder of the disability advocacy group United for Equal Access New York, has made ride-hailing expansion his issue. Specifically, the Bronx man sought to have legislation that would have provided for ride-hailing outside of New York City amended earlier this year to include provisions for 100 percent wheelchair-accessible service requirements. Ultimately, that bill failed, though for reasons beyond accessibility. “I think we’re being heard, but we’re not being heard at the levels where we should be heard,” Jones said. “That’s going to take a lot more convincing. That’s where myself and other advocates and aspiring advocates need to really come out and let the Legislature know that we’re not going to really stand for this.” The good news for Jones and others with disabilities who are civically engaged is in politics there is strength in numbers. And their ranks are growing.

New York: Latino Voters Hit Hardest By Brooklyn Voter Purge | NPR

Ever since New York state’s presidential primary in April, officials from the city Board of Elections have been trying to explain what led to two illegal voter purges that removed more than 120,000 voters from the rolls. Executive Director Michael Ryan has apologized publicly, but he has also tried to debunk claims that any specific group of voters was unduly affected by the purge. Testifying under oath at a City Council hearing last month, Ryan said that “a broad cross-section of voters [was] removed from the voter rolls.” But a WNYC analysis found something very different.

New York: Why Voter Rolls Can Be A Mess | WPPB

Part of running a fair election is knowing who the voters are. That means keeping an accurate list of who is eligible to vote. That has proved to be a difficult task in many states – including New York, where a spectacular meltdown angered thousands of voters and inflamed partisan passions during the state’s April presidential primary. The problems in New York City are part of a much larger issue. A 2012 study by the Pew Center on the States found that 24 million voter registrations were wrong or invalid. That’s one in every eight voters across the country, which translates to a lot of voting roll problems. In the run up to the election, the New York City Board of Elections mistakenly purged more than 120,000 voters from its rolls in Brooklyn, ten percent of the active registered voters.

New York: Board of Elections and Department of Motor Vehicles Sued for Discrimination | WNYC

Eva Eason, 49, is blind, which means that when she goes online, she uses software which can read text on certain web sites aloud or translate it into Braille so she can read it herself. A year and a half ago, she needed to update her voter registration with a new address. But when she went to the Board of Elections web site, her software hit a snag when she tried to select a political party. “For some reason the screen reader was not picking it up. It wouldn’t take me to it. So I had to ask somebody,” Eason told WNYC. She also had problems when she tried the DMV site. “You want to be independent,” said Eason, “and then this is where you get stopped.” Now the New York State Board of Elections and Department of Motor Vehicles are facing a lawsuit over claims by Eason and others that they violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. The agencies are being sued over the accessibility of their websites. The complaint was filed in federal court Thursday.

New York: Cuomo Seeks Fixes to ‘Rampant’ Problems in New York’s Campaign Contribution System | The New York Times

With little movement on state ethics laws, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced a late push in the legislative session on Wednesday to tighten restrictions on election laws governing money given to candidates through so-called independent expenditure committees. In particular, the governor will suggest clarifying criteria — via a legal opinion and legislation to be introduced — for determining if a candidate is improperly coordinating with a committee, including whether the candidate and committee have overlapping donor bases, past staff members in common or the same consultants. Shared office space or information would also be considered evidence of improper coordination under the governor’s plan, outlined in a speech given on Wednesday at Fordham Law School, as would similarities in campaign material produced by a candidate and a committee.

New York: Audit: New York City Elections Board Lost Track Of Voting Machines | Associated Press

City Board of Elections officials have lost track of more than 1,450 pieces of equipment, including some voting machines, according to an audit released Monday. “If you can’t count inventory, how can New Yorkers trust you to count their votes?” said Comptroller Scott Stringer, who led an army of auditors carrying out the task. Election officials examined Board of Elections inventories over nearly three years, ending last February. Tracing more than 5,000 items out of about 11,000 inventoried, they scoured five board warehouses and other facilities to match the entries.

New York: Elections chief defends botched primary; Challenges loom | The Villager

Facing accusations of fraud and disenfranchisement, the New York City Board of Elections voted unanimously last week to certify the results of New York’s hotly contested April 19 presidential primary. But the results are sure to leave many unsatisfied. The board threw out nearly 91,000 of the 121,056 provisional ballots cast by voters who had been unable to vote on primary day either because their names were taken off the rolls or because their party affiliation had been dropped or switched to a different party without their knowing. So roughly three-quarters of the affidavits were deemed invalid and not counted, according to the tallies posted on the Board of Elections Web site last Friday. That’s in addition to all those who did not file affidavits because they were not aware they could or because their polling places ran out of them.

New York: Elections Board Certifies Primary Vote, Rejects 91,000 Provisional Ballots | The Indypendent

After presiding over a chaotic Democratic presidential primary on April 19, the New York City Board of Elections released its certified election results Friday afternoon showing that it has rejected 91,000 provisional affidavit ballots, or about three out of every four cast that day. Diana Finch, who has served as a poll worker for nearly a decade, said the number of affidavit ballots in her Bronx election district far exceeded the usual number. “The envelopes that are provided to each election district to put the affidavit ballots in were all filled to bursting at my poll site, we had to squeeze the affidavit ballots in,” Finch told The Indypendent. “Clearly the Board of Elections never anticipated having so many affidavits.”

New York: Judge rejects challenge to New York’s ‘closed primary’ system | New York Daily News

New York State’s presidential primary results can be certified by the city and state Boards of Elections without any interference from the courts, a Manhattan judge ruled Monday. State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron rejected a plea by a Manhattan attorney to rule that the state’s “closed primary” system violates the state constitution because independents can’t vote at all and those who do participate must be enrolled in their respective political parties six months before the election. Mark Warren Moody asked the judge to issue a temporary restraining order to block the certification of the April 19 primary results, but Engoron refused, saying it’s not likely that Moody would win on the merits of his argument.

New York: State may expand online voter registration | The Journal News

New York may see an expansion of online voter registration after Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ruled Tuesday that the practice is legal. The opinion came in response to questions from Suffolk County officials asking if state law permits the county to implement an online voter registration system. Currently, the state Department of Motor Vehicles offers online voter registration for New Yorkers that uses an electronic signature, but not elsewhere. Schneiderman said his opinion of county online voter registration is a “new era of truly online voter registration,” and he encouraged county elections boards to develop online registration systems.

New York: Everyone Is Angry at the New York City Board of Elections | Observer

It hasn’t exactly been a banner week for the New York City Board of Elections, and it’s only Monday. The fallout of a problem-plagued presidential primary last week continued today with an offer of $20 million in extra city funding from Mayor Bill de Blasio—but only if the board cleans up its act. That would include making “systemic changes” based on recommendations from an outside consultant and publicly posting all job vacancies, improving poll worker staffing with better pay and better training, and communicating more clearly with voters about poll sites, election days and registration statuses. “We’ve said this is, in effect, a challenge grant,” Mr. de Blasio said. “There’s a lot we’d like to help the Board of Elections do, but we must see commitment to reform and modernization, or we’re not going to spend the taxpayers’ dollars.”

New York: Comptroller slams city’s ‘broken voting system’ | New York Post

Comptroller Scott Stringer vowed Sunday to “take a sledgehammer” to the city’s voting system following the disappearance of 126,000 Brooklyn Democrats from election rolls that came to light during last Tuesday’s primary. “We have a broken voting system,” Stringer told NY1. “We’ve got to take a sledgehammer to this. We have to stop pretending this is a democracy.” His office is planning to audit the Board of Elections, but Stringer said the agency shouldn’t wait for his report. “The Board of Elections has to get their act together. First, they have to admit they have a problem,” he said.

New York: State Attorney Schneiderman’s office receives more than 1,000 primary day complaints | Times Union

State Attorney Eric Schneiderman said Wednesday that his office fielded more than 1,000 complaints from voters statewide during Tuesday’s presidential primaries. “By most accounts, voters cast their ballots smoothly and successfully,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “However, I am deeply troubled by the volume and consistency of voting irregularities, both in public reports and direct complaints to my office’s voter hotline, which received more than one thousand complaints in the course of the day yesterday.” Schneiderman said his office has opened an investigation into “alleged improprieties” in Tuesday’s voting by the New York City Board of Elections, which has been rebuked by officials after some 125,000 Democratic voters were purged from the rolls in Brooklyn.

New York: Brooklyn election official ousted for error that purged Brooklyn voters | New York Daily News

The massive purge of over 100,000 Brooklyn voters from the rolls — which caused huge problems at polling sites this past Tuesday — was the result of an epic screw-up by a long-time official expected to be forced out over the debacle, sources said. Diane Haslett-Rudiano, the Board of Election’s chief clerk, was suspended without pay on Thursday, two days after the city’s botched presidential primary prompted criticism from both the winners and losers on the Democratic side.

New York: It’s Far Harder To Change Parties In New York Than In Any Other State | FiveThirtyEight

Some of Bernie Sanders’s biggest supporters may not be able to vote for him in New York’s primary on Tuesday. Unaffiliated voters are a big share of Sanders’s support, but New York makes it hard for voters to register for a party at the last minute. For example, Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner and a Sanders supporter, can’t vote in the Democratic primary because she didn’t change her party registration in time to qualify. It’s an issue for Republicans too: Some high-profile Donald Trump supporters — or at least two of his kids — won’t be able to partake in the fun. New York’s deadline for switching party registration was Oct. 9, 193 days before the primary. I wanted to know if a party-switch deadline six months before a primary or caucus was as unusual as it sounded, so I went through every state’s election board website to see.

New York: Voting Problems Prompt Comptroller to Vow Audit of City’s Elections Board | The New York Times

Citing concerns about potential voting irregularities during the most consequential presidential primary in years, the New York City comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, said on Tuesday that his office would audit the city’s Board of Elections in part to determine if tens of thousands of Democratic voters were improperly removed from voter rolls. Mr. Stringer said in a statement that the Board of Elections had confirmed that more than 125,000 Democratic voters in Brooklyn were dropped between November 2015 and this month. He said the decline occurred “without any adequate explanation furnished by the Board of Elections.” “There is nothing more sacred in our nation than the right to vote, yet election after election, reports come in of people who were inexplicably purged from the polls, told to vote at the wrong location or unable to get in to their polling site,” Mr. Stringer, a Democrat, said.

New York: After More Than 100,000 Voters Dropped In Brooklyn, City Officials Call For Action | NPR

Following widespread irregularities at polls in Brooklyn Tuesday, New York City officials are calling for major reforms at the Board of Elections. The problem was first identified in a an analysis of state voter enrollment statistics by WNYC’s Brigid Bergin. The Board of Elections then confirmed that more than 120,000 voters have been dropped from the rolls in Brooklyn alone since November. “No other borough in New York City nor county in the rest of the state saw such a significant decline in active registered Democrats. In fact, only 7 of the state’s 62 counties saw a drop in the number of Democrats. Everywhere else saw the numbers increase,” WNYC found. The more than 120,000 dropped includes 12,000 people who moved out of the borough, 44,000 people who were moved from active to inactive voter status, and 70,000 voters removed from the inactive voter list, according to the station.

New York: Republican ‘rotten boroughs’ could clinch nomination due to delegate quirk | The Guardian

Like British parliamentary elections in the 18th century, the Republican presidential primary in 2016 may be decided in rotten boroughs. While the rotten boroughs in Georgian England were the long since abandoned sites of medieval towns where aristocratic landowners could handpick members of parliament, the Republican rotten boroughs are vibrant, heavily populated urban areas in places like New York and Los Angeles. They just don’t have very many registered Republicans. The result of gerrymandered redistricting processes and the deep alienation of minority communities from the Republican party is that there are many congressional districts where registered Republicans are almost as rare as unicorns. Republican delegate apportionment rules in many states, however, mean that every congressional district receives three delegates to the convention, regardless of how many GOP voters live there. In contrast, the Democratic party’s formula for delegates is influenced by the number of votes cast for their presidential nominee in the past few elections in each district. Instead of seeking to represent every voter equally, this gives more weight to committed Democratic voters. And it means the ratio of voters to delegates is less unbalanced than it might be otherwise.

New York: Judge Rejects Move To Open Primary To Purged Voters & Independents | Gothamist

A New York Federal District Court judge held a short-notice hearing on Tuesday afternoon in relation to a lawsuit filed yesterday against the state by dozens of New York voters, alleging that their registrations in the Democratic party had been purged or altered, preventing them from voting in today’s presidential primary. The lawsuit, which claims that voters inexplicably dropped from the voter rolls are being denied their constitutional rights, called on the judge to instate a hearing process by which New Yorkers who believe their registration has been wrongfully purged might defend themselves. “Usually what happens is the Board of Elections takes your provisional ballot, and checks it against the voter rolls. If it it doesn’t match they throw it out,” said attorney Jonathan Clarke outside the courtroom this afternoon. “What we’re asking is that your vote stay counted until the Board of Elections can actually [prove you’re not registered].”

New York: 27 Percent of New York’s Registered Voters Won’t Be Able to Vote in the State’s Primary | The Nation

In June 2013, North Carolina passed the most sweeping voting restrictions in the country, requiring strict voter ID, cutting early voting and eliminating same-day registration, pre-registration for 16 and 17-year-olds, and out-of-precinct voting, among other political reforms. The state defended its cutbacks in court last summer by invoking, of all places, New York. “The state of New York has no early voting as opposed to North Carolina that has ten days of early voting,” lawyer Thomas Farr said. “The state of New York has no same-day registration. The state of New York has no out-of-precinct voting. The state of New York has no pre-registration.” It was a cynical defense of North Carolina’s law—North Carolinians don’t deserve to suffer because a state 500 miles away has different laws—but it was still unnerving to hear a Southern state invoke a progressive Northern state to rationalize making it harder to vote. The fact is, New York does have some of the worst voting laws in the country. New York has no early voting (unlike 37 states), no Election Day registration (the state constitution requires voters to register no later than 10 days before an election), and excuse-only absentee balloting (voters have to prove they’ll be out of town or have a disability.)

New York: Voters file lawsuit over alleged election fraud | New York Daily News

More than 200 outraged New York voters have joined a lawsuit claiming the party affiliation on their voter registration changed without their consent. The voters say they are unfairly being shut out of Tuesday’s primary. The suit, to be filed Monday in Brooklyn, calls for New York to be an open primary state, allowing anyone to vote in primaries regardless of party affiliation. “For many of our complainants, to have the electoral process deprived of them, it’s devastating,” Shyla Nelson, an activist and spokeswoman for Election Justice U.S.A., told the Daily News.

New York: The Effects of New York’s Restrictive Voting Laws | The Atlantic

When Donald Trump confirmed to the hosts on Fox & Friends on Monday that two of his adult children, Ivanka and Eric, would not be able to vote for him in the New York primary, it seemed like one more head-smacking blunder by a disorganized campaign. How could Trump’s own kids forget to register in a state that has become crucial to his bid for the Republican nomination? Their lapse may be easy fodder for Trump’s rivals, but Ivanka and Eric’s plight is engendering far more sympathy from election reformers who are much more familiar with New York’s notoriously restrictive voting laws. “They’re just like a lot of people whom we’re hearing from on a regular basis,” Susan Lerner, the executive director of the state’s Common Cause affiliate, told me. Voting in New York is for early planners, not procrastinators. And that’s especially true for primaries.

New York: Early primary deadlines frustrate New Yorkers left unable to vote | The Guardian

A lot has changed in the presidential primaries since 9 October 2015. Back then, a CBS News poll showed Hillary Clinton beating Bernie Sanders nationally by nearly 20 points; if Joe Biden had entered the race, the same poll suggested Clinton would beat Sanders by 24 points. She was, in the minds of many liberal voters, the inevitable Democratic nominee. Another CBS News poll showed Donald Trump with a slim six-point lead over Dr Ben Carson nationally and, after two almost cartoonish debate performances, most Republicans and pundits expected the businessman’s numbers to slide and eventually eliminate him from contention. Quietly on that same day, the New York state board of elections’ deadline to change party affiliation passed, leaving any registered voters not identified as a Republican or a Democrat with no way to vote in the 19 April 2016 primary.