primary, but challenges loom PRIMARY continued from p. 14
sion to count that vote.� Voting rights groups say now that the certification process is complete, they can move forward to challenge the results. “The [primary] certification formally starts the process where everything will become official,� explained Jonathan Clarke, a lawyer for Election Justice USA, speaking on the Internet news show “The Young Turks� last Thursday. “There’s been a couple of occasions before in New York City when they’ve certified an election and they went back and looked at affidavit ballots, absentee ballots, and they got added or subtracted from the total,� Clarke said. In addition, both state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and City Comptroller Scott Stringer have launched investigations of the B.O.E. in the wake of last month’s botched primary. There have been reports of similar widespread purges of voters in Suffolk County (where 90 percent of the affidavits cast were tossed) and Nassau and Westchester counties. It is unlikely that legal challenges and investigations will alter the overall result of New York’s Democratic primary. According to the now-official results, Hillary Clinton beat Sanders by 1,054,083 to 763,469 votes statewide, or roughly 290,000 votes. But because New York awards delegates proportionally — based on how many votes a candidate receives in a particular Congressional district — advocates are determined that every vote be counted accurately. At a raucous public hearing on May 3, several poll watchers accused the B.O.E. of counting affidavit ballots behind closed doors. Jesse Bonelli, a certified poll watcher for Sanders, testified that he was allowed to watch the counting of absentee ballots in the Brooklyn borough office. “But when it came time to count the affidavits, I was told I could not see it,� Bonelli said. “The ballots were being processed and verified in another room. But we only got to see the ones that were verified. Where are the ones in the back room? Two-thirds of the ballots were turned away that we were not able to see,� he told the commissioners. Similarly, poll watcher Fader, who was certified to represent Sanders delegate Nicolas Dedual in the 13th Congressional District, said he went on April 29 to observe the counting of the affidavit ballots at the Bronx borough office. “I arrived at Friday at 11 a.m. and they didn’t let me see a single thing until 4 p.m.,� he said. “All that time, they kept stonewalling me, but they were basically just invalidating the affidavits in the back room. “They are supposed to provide a list of the invalid affidavits to the delegate representatives, so we can contact the voters to see if they feel their votes should be counted,� Fader continued. “They said we could have that information, but we got nothing. Now there’s all these people whose data TheVillager.com
was lost and we can’t object.� Responding to him and the scores of other pissed-off voters who packed the May 3 hearing, B.O.E. Chairwoman Bianka Perez insisted the “proper procedure for counting affidavits� had been followed. In a follow-up interview with The Villager last Friday, Ryan said the poll watchers were not allowed to see the affidavits that were invalidated because of the need to “maintain the secrecy of the ballot.� When an affidavit is submitted at the polls, it is placed in an envelope that the voter must sign, Ryan explained. Before even opening the envelope, Ryan explained, B.O.E. staffers look first to see if the voter is legally entitled to vote in the primary. “If you’re not a registered Democrat or Republican, you’re not entitled to vote in the primary, so your ballot is invalidated because a) you’re not registered at all or b) you’re not registered to a particular party or c) you did not fill out the affidavit properly, i.e. you didn’t sign it. That’s a legal defect,� Ryan said. “So all those envelopes never got opened because we have to maintain the secrecy of the ballot,� Ryan stated. Only the affidavits submitted by eligible voters were opened, Ryan said: “The procedure is, once the envelopes are going to be opened, the opening process is public, and party representatives or attorneys for the candidates can be seated at the table. Otherwise, there’s a cordoned-off public area.� Ryan said the widespread purging of voters in New York City stemmed from a 2013 audit by the city’s Department of Investigation that found there were too many voters on the rolls. “So in early 2015, the Brooklyn borough office undertook voter list maintenance,� he said. “Anyone who didn’t vote in 2008 or earlier was flagged to receive an intent-to-cancel notice.� Almost 124,000 of those notices were sent out, Ryan said. “Of those, over 6,000 were returned,� meaning people sent back a mailer confirming their address and current voting status. “In the case of the other 117,000, there was no response, and so we cancelled those voters. They were supposed to be sent actual cancellation notices,� Ryan explained. But in the Brooklyn borough office, Ryan conceded, “they skipped that step� — meaning the voters were not informed they were being placed on the “inactive� list. Ryan admitted that there was an “unusually high number� of voters purged from the lists — a fact that was even flagged during a B.O.E. hearing last July. “We discussed this — and that the Brooklyn board was behind in its list maintenance by several years,� he acknowledged. Ryan said the commissioners took this to be a reasonable explanation PRIMARY continued on p. 20
GARNETWINE.COM
NEW STORE POLICY: PERMANENTLY & FOREVER OFFERING THESE DISCOUNTS NEW OWNERSHIP
WE DELIVER! ORDER ONLINE FOR OUR MOST COMPETITIVE PRICES
20% OFF 15% OFF
ALL STILL WINES
ALL LIQUORS
Enjoy every day discounts. No coupons needed! No Limit – All Sizes Garnet Wines has recently come under NEW OWNERSHIP! OUR GOAL IS TO ALWAYS BE THE LOWEST PRICES IN MANATTAN
FREE DELIVERY IN MANHATTAN 212-772-3211 | GarnetWine.com Mon-Wed 8am – 9pm Thurs – Sat 8am – 10pm Sun 12pm – 7pm 929 Lexington Avenue (Between 68th & 69th Streets) May 12, 2016
15