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ASSESSMENT: Election reform advocate Susan Lerner (L) and Neal Rosenstein present a report card that grades the mayor and the Board of Elections on their efforts in improving voting integrity. (Christine Lin/Epoch Times)
NEW YORK—Ready for the polls? Voter groups think a better question is whether the polls are ready for you.
The New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) with several other civic groups issued a report card grading Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Board of Elections (BOE) in their performance in improving election operations. Both the Mayor and the BOE received an average grade of C, the groups announced on Wednesday Oct. 22 in front of City Hall.
The graders gave credit where it is due and open criticism where they saw fit. Both the mayor and the BOE earned A's for a new online polling place locater and 311 assistance. The mayor and BOE each got Fs in one category: the mayor for not providing the BOE necessary funds to help voters use new voting systems, and the BOE for improperly purging 30,000 names from voter rosters.
The groups cite finger pointing between the mayor and the BOE for some of the holes in the system. New electronic voting machines will phase out the punch voting machines on Nov. 4, but the City has not paid for workers to help voters transition to the new machines. Similarly, the BOE refused to post sample ballots online ahead of the election date although the City has offered the technical help needed to do so.
“The voters are trapped in a situation where the Mayor and the Board of Elections are kind of like Mom and Dad, fighting,” said Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause, a nonprofit that lobbies for accountability in government.
The City has assured voter advocates that there are enough poll workers to serve the 211,000 voters who registered in the two weeks before the Oct. 10 deadline. Though workers labored overtime to register the onslaught of registrants, the printed rosters were in the works before the electronic database was completed—which will leave some registered voters scratching their heads at the polls.
A survey by the Center for Independence of the Disabled found 66 percent of polling places examined to lack signs directing the disabled to entrances, or that machines for the disabled were put in an inaccessible corner in the polling place.
The City could have taken simple steps like mailing out polling place reminder postcards, but the last one was sent back in August as required by State law.
If a voter shows up to the polls to find a mismatch between his name and his entry in the voter roll book, polls are required to check for clerical errors. But the BOE has said that they have sent out 30,000 notices of cancellation instead of querying voters, forcing voters to use “error-prone affidavit paper ballots,” said Neal Rosenstein, the government reform coordinator at NYPIRG.
What You Can Do
Though the system will likely never be perfect, here's what the individual can do to avoid mishaps at the polling place:
-Check that you are registered, especially if you were among those who registered close to the deadline. Go to www.voterlookup.elections.state.ny.us to verify your registration. Print out the page to prove your registration, in case your name didn't make it into the printed roster.
-Learn where your polling place is. The BOE website (http://gis.nyc.gov/vote/ps/index.htm) lets you search for your designated polling place based on your street address.
-Write down your assembly district and election district and bring it to the polling place, provided on the BOE website. This will help direct you to the correct table at the polling place.
- Don't forget to bring government-issued ID.
For the really proactive, though it's too late to become a poll worker, there is usually a shortage of Chinese, Korean, and Spanish interpreters. Apply at on the BOE website, http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/pollworkers.html.
