[2020 New York City Primary]
City & State: “The New York City Board of Elections is legally required to start counting absentee ballots by July 1, but that won’t happen because of the immense number of absentee ballots. The vote counting will begin on Staten Island on July 6.”
Photo: YouTube
Some election results in New York City are still pending as high volume of absentee ballots must still be counted.
Since the coronavirus pandemic has forced New Yorkers to stay at home, the state decided to allow anyone to vote via absentee ballot.
But that transition came with lots of challenges, as people didn’t get their absentee ballots mailed back in time for their votes to count in the June 23 primary. That problem was spurred in part by the New York City Board of Elections being flooded with requests for more than 700,000 absentee ballots. For comparison, only 23,775 absentee and military ballots were filed during the 2016 presidential primary.
The glut of absentee ballots also means that election results are still pending because so many votes continue to come in by mail. City & State takes a look at when these ballots will be counted and what it means for finding out which candidates have emerged victorious.
When will absentee ballots start to get counted?
The New York City Board of Elections is legally required to start counting absentee ballots by July 1, but that won’t happen because of the immense number of absentee ballots. The vote counting will begin on Staten Island on July 6, with the remaining boroughs beginning their counts on July 8.
This slowdown is happening in part because ballots need to be processed before they can be counted, which involves checking information like whether ballots have been signed and dated, and if a voter who mailed an absentee ballot also voted in person.
“Normally, there are few enough absentee ballots that staff at the board can go through them and make a determination of validity, and be ready the next day to set up the count,” said Sarah Steiner, an election lawyer who used to chair the Election Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen here.”
For the rest of this CIty & State story log on to: https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/politics/campaigns-elections/long-wait-new-york-city-election-results.html
