County Legislators Launch Hearings Over an Election Gone Awry

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The county Board of Legislators controls the Board of Elections' budget

July 10, 2020

By Barrett Seaman–

Okay, it was a tough environment in which to hold an election—unprecedented, really: the pandemic, the shutdown, the natural fears for personal safety and the new voting options designed to help overcome those obstacles all conspired to hand the Westchester Board of Elections the toughest assignment it’s ever had.

But in the views of dozens of citizens, including party district leaders and the representatives of several election-savvy organizations like the League of Women Voters, the ACLU and the Concerned Voters of Westchester, who called in to an open hearing Wednesday night, using the online platform Webex, the Board pretty much made a hash of the June 23^rd Primary. As one caller summarized it during the two-hour hearing, “This election was mishandled by the Board of Elections.”

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The litany of errors and shortcomings echoed the criticisms articulated by Congressional candidate Allison Fine (“Serious Confusion on Election Day” https://thehudsonindependent.com/serious-confusion-on-election-day/) but were dramatized in granular anecdotal accounts from caller after caller. Tales of too few polling places, long lines, inadequate or unsecure equipment, misinformation about where to vote, lack of poll worker training and a pervasive failure to communicate—all pointed to failures by the Board that could have been avoided and must be avoided in the November general election.

The hearing was the first in a series of meetings called by a newly appointed Election Information Gathering Task Force. Its members include Vice Chairwoman of the Board Alfreda Williams, Majority Leader MaryJane Shimsky, and it is chaired by Legislator Catherine Borgia, Chairwoman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, and Legislator Vedat Gashi, Chairman of the Public Works and Transportation Committee. The Task Force will continue to accept comments from the public, either by email to BOLPublicComments@westchesterlegislators.com

or by mail to the Clerk of the Board of Legislators, 148 Martine Ave., 8th Floor, White Plains, NY 1060. Written comments must be received by 5:00 p.m. on July 15.

Here’s a summary of the complaints:

*Too few polling places: the Board’s decision to reduce the number of voting places on primary day by about 80% from previous numbers was based on the assumption that sufficient numbers of voters would take advantage of one of two new options: early voting or absentee voting. That didn’t happen—at least not enough to justify the cutbacks. The sparsity of polling places also forced some voters to travel long distances without adequate transportation options. Said Myra Saul, representing the group Concerned Voters of Westchester, “Long lines are not just an inconvenience; they disenfranchise voters.”

*Too few check-in iPads, used by poll workers to verify voter eligibility, and too few voting machines: the long lines caused initially by cutbacks in polling places were exacerbated by check-in and voting bottlenecks once inside.

*Too short a period for early voting: the two-week period during which voters could pick a day and place to cast an early ballot wasn’t enough.

*Inexplicable delays in mailing out absentee ballots: some (probably many) voters who had applied for an absentee ballot did not receive it until way late in the process and sometimes not at all.

*Non-existent confirmation of receipt of an absentee ballot: many voters who mailed in ballots had no idea if the ballots were properly postmarked by the Post Office or received by the Board of Elections and if so, accepted as a valid vote. They still don’t know.

*The uncertainty over the absentee ballot process left many feeling obliged to vote in person on Primary Day as an insurance. And yet many reported being told by poll workers that if they had even applied for an absentee ballot, their in-person vote would have to be provisional. (That happened to State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins in Yonkers.) By law, an in-person vote on election day overrides any previous vote.

*Poorly trained poll workers: There were reports of delayed openings at polling places because workers didn’t know how to start up the voting machines and reports of poll workers at early voting places telling voters that they’d come to the wrong place, though the law clearly says an early vote can be cast at any polling place in the county.

*Inadequate or inaccurate communication: if there was one criticism that garnered more repetition than any other, it was the failure on the part of the Board of Elections to communicate in a timely and accurate fashion everything from dates and places of early voting to the basic rules and regulations poll workers need to know in order to properly assist in the voting process. Several of the callers to the open hearing pointed to the Board of Elections’ website as poorly designed and user-unfriendly.

*Many callers echoed Allison Fine’s complaint about the opacity of the Board’s deliberations. As a governmental body, it is subject to the state’s Open Meetings law, which says that the public must be allowed to attend, that minutes are kept and made available to the public.

*There are also requirements that the Board announce its plans in a timely manner. New York State’s system of allowing party functionaries to run elections needs to be changed, said several critics, including Yonkers-based columnist Dick Hubert, who suggested that the $195,000 annual salary paid to each of the two Commissioners would be better spent on non-partisan professionals with the skills to manage an election.

*Inherent in many of the observations were constructive suggestions on how to fix the system in time for the general election in November. More poll workers need to be hired and properly trained. The website needs to be redesigned so as to serve as a source of information for voters and a training mechanism for poll workers. As COVID is likely to still be around in the fall, polling places must be selected with an eye towards offering more space for social distancing and for more voting machines to speed the process, as well as the standard requirements such as access for the disabled.

*Absentee voting should be made a permanent option, and the period for early voting should be extended. Several suggested that the process of validating absentee ballots should be tightened in terms of how the Post Office handles them and through offering alternative methods of submission—like creating secure drop-in boxes around the county. Others would welcome a system whereby voters could confirm both the receipt and the accuracy of their absentee ballots.

The County Board of Legislators technically has no jurisdiction over the Board of Elections, except that it controls its budget. More than once during the hearing, it was suggested that after the Task Force makes its recommendations, expected sometime in August, the legislature use its power of the purse to force reforms. As newspaperman Dick Hubert observed, “All of us are really worried about November, and we have good reason to be worried.”