Watchdog: Mail-in voting results will take time
(23 Jul 2020) New York's quest to keep voters at the June primary polls safe from COVID-19 by mailing all registered voters an application for absentee ballots has led to an unknown number of voters disenfranchised because of discarded, unpostmarked ballots and raised questions about how the state will handle the November election. "The system is adjusting to a huge increase in absentee ballots," Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause New York said. New York election officials say it will take them until perhaps early August to finish counting a tidal wave of absentee ballots that's overwhelmed a system that typically handles a small percentage of mail-in ballots each year. The head of the election watchdog organization believes the states boards of elections "have proceeded in a appropriate, measured way to be sure that they are properly counting all the ballots." In April, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the state would mail every voter a ballot application for an absentee ballot, and he said any voter could vote by absentee because of the pandemic. "A switch from almost no absentee ballots to approximately 50 percent absentee ballots in with two months notice really strains the system," Lerner said. About 1.8 million New Yorkers requested mailed-in ballots for the June 23 primary and 1.1 million voted at the polls in the Democratic presidential primary. About 160,000 absentee people requested to vote by mail in the June primary in 2016, while roughly 1.8 million Democrats and 860,000 Republican voted in the April primary that year. But the state never sent election workers any extra funds to handle the surge, which has led to an unprecedented delay in vote-counting unseen in other states with mail-in voting. Voters who were concerned about going to the polls were left awaiting ballots that may not have arrived until late on Election Day or on the following days. "Nothing went wrong at the state," Lerners said. "What's happening is that the system is adjusting to a huge increase in absentee ballots. New York State appropriately made absentee balloting available during the pandemic." The state Board of Elections said it's too early to know how many ballots were received by voters after June 23. And the state doesn't have an estimate on how many ballots ended up invalidated, including ballots that arrived after June 23 but lacked a postmark. "We're going to have to adjust our expectations," lerner said. "We're going to have preliminary but not final results on Election Day. It takes time to get it right. And we should take that time." Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: / ap_archive Facebook: / aparchives Instagram: / apnews You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
