Home » News » One week before the elections, this is the process in our area – Telemundo New York (47)

One week before the elections, this is the process in our area – Telemundo New York (47)

NEW YORK – New Yorkers lined up to vote early in recent days, many waiting under umbrellas, after a weekend that saw a crowd of more than 400,000 voters across the state.

State election officials said 422,169 people voted on Saturday and Sunday, the first two days of early voting in New York. The unofficial count shows about 194,000 voters this weekend in New York City, where some people waited an hour or more in lines that spanned several blocks.

“We need this to be a better experience. The long lines tell people to go home. That’s just the reality, “Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday in his daily briefing.” Right now, we have a problem.

De Blasio accused the city’s Electoral Board of “clearly not being prepared” for the large turnout. He urged the board to extend early voting hours on weekends, put more voting machines online before Election Day, and make more staff available to assist voters. The mayor said he will vote Tuesday at the Park Slope Armory YMCA in Brooklyn.

The governor made similar reviews of the early voting process and said bluntly, “I think the New York City Board of Elections did a terrible job.” Federal Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave it a different name: voter suppression.

“Just because it’s happening in a blue state doesn’t mean it’s not voter suppression,” he said.

While the mayor wasn’t ready to label it the same, he had its fair share of criticism.

“I would say it a little but differently. I would say that when the electoral authorities do not make it easy for them, they discourage people from voting,” De Blasio said. He anticipated that the Board of Elections (BOE) might say it doesn’t have the money to extend hours so late in the process, and he countered that hypothetical argument by saying the city will pay for it to stay open later.

An email seeking comment was sent to a spokesperson for the Board. Regarding the possible changes that could be made to the BOE, Governor Cuomo said that he “would be open to what the city proposes and redesign from scratch.”

Early voters continued to turn out steadily on a rain-soaked Monday, though local wait times varied. Thousands were already lined up as the race increased in an effort to beat the midday crowds, and at one SoHo location there were roughly 1,000 people waiting to cast their vote.

Lines lasted about 10 minutes at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. At a polling place in downtown Manhattan, some voters waited more than two hours. A local hotel handed out tea and coffee to those in line and a girl handed out candy.

In Staten Island, Republican Congressional candidate Nicole Malliotakis faced a short line to vote at an elementary school. She is challenging Democratic Rep. Max Rose.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams questioned the various hours the BOE kept places open for voters. Tuesdays and Wednesdays will be from noon to 8 pm. Thursday will be from 10 am to 6 pm .; Friday will be from 7 am to 3 pm .; and the weekend will be from 10 am to 4 pm

“We believe inconsistency hurts the process. At the same times we do on a normal election day. People know from the time it opens to the time it closes,” Adams said.

In the suburbs of Ossining, north of New York City, an elderly woman collapsed while waiting in a light rain in a nearly two-hour line to vote. She was taken on a stretcher to an ambulance and re-emerged in a wheelchair half an hour later, pushed to vote as people in line celebrated her return.

Turnout across Westchester County is certainly much higher than last year, when early voting was implemented. Most of the 17 early voting locations in the county still had lines longer than an hour, not a huge improvement over the weekend.

Some places are trying to find a few different solutions so that at-risk voters aren’t waiting in line with others for so long. The City of Greenburgh created a separate line for voters 65 and older to get in faster. The city also brought in food trucks for those waiting in line and has more plans for this weekend.

“We are going to organize some entertainment this weekend, so while people are waiting in line we can find some volunteer musicians who can make it fun,” said Greenburgh City Supervisor Paul Feiner.

It was a similar story on Long Island and upstate Buffalo, where Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz waited in line with a dozen voters outside a church. More than 28,000 people voted this weekend in Buffalo and surrounding Erie County.

“More people voted early in the first two days of early voting in Erie County than in the nine days last year,” Poloncarz said while waiting to vote.

Early voting continues until November 1.

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