Common Cause/NY Issues 30-Day Notice to Board of Elections

NEW YORK, NY (09/27/2018) (readMedia)-- Today, the New York City Board of Elections (NYCBOE) will certify the election results from the September 13th primary, during which Common Cause/NY and its partners received hundreds of calls, emails and tweets from New Yorkers who experienced trouble voting.

In response, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights representing Common Cause/NY issued a 30-day notice to the Board for potential violations of the 2017 settlement which resolved the lawsuit over the purging of 200,000 voters from the rolls ahead of the presidential primary in April 2016. In the settlement the Board agreed to conduct thorough annual audits of lists and adopt a procedure to ensure eligible voters are not removed in error.

"We've collected a variety of complaints from voters, but the most concerning come from New Yorkers who'd voted as recently in the June primaries and then could not vote in September. Some appear to have been involuntarily dis-enrolled from their party, and others showed up at their poll site to find their names mysteriously missing from the rolls," said Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause/NY. "Either way, if the Board has violated its settlement, we will hold them accountable and ensure that voters get the justice they deserve."

On Primary Day two weeks ago, 27% of New Yorkers turned out to vote – almost double the amount from the 2014 gubernatorial sprimary.

Of the 1.5 million people who came out, too many experienced problems at the polls.

Over 125 New Yorkers shared their election day story with Common Cause/NY on or after the primary. 70% of voters reported having trouble on election day:

• Slightly more than half of affected voters reported not being on the voter rolls, despite the fact that many are long time registered voters or had voted within the last year.
• Numerous voters reported issues at their poll site. The issues varied and ranged from missing pollbooks, to broken voting machines and missing signage, or poorly trained staff.
• Dante de Blasio, Mayor de Blasio's son, encountered perennial incompetence from the BOE.
• 19.3% of voters contacting Common Cause/NY reported an unauthorized change in party affiliation from the Democratic party to the Reform party or to unaffiliated status.
• As a follow-up analysis, CCNY reviewed the voter file and found that 338 super-prime Democrats appear to have had their party affiliation changed between the federal and state primary this year.

Common Cause/NY and its allies issued a 30-day notice of concern to the NYCBOE that the list maintenance activities in advance of and during the September 13 primary election were not sufficient to ensure compliance with the decree of the 2017 settlement, and may not have complied with the NVRA and applicable New York Election Law.

Additionally, advocates from Let NY Vote pushed for real election reform like early voting, which would allow New Yorkers more than a single day to cast their ballot, and electronic pollbooks, which would make it easier to find voters' names, among others.

"LatinoJustice PRLDEF is committed to advocating on behalf of Latino voters, and ensuring that all Latino citizens are able to fully engage in our democracy," said Jorge Luis Vasquez, Jr. Associate Counsel LatinoJustice PRLDEF.

"Primaries are when individual voters have some of the strongest influence, yet it is during New York's primaries that voters face the most problems. Instead of leading the nation in electoral progress, New York is used as an example for other states to move backward by conducting similar roll purges, reducing hours, and adding increasing administrative burden to their voters," said Amy Torres, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC). "Tedious paperwork, lack of language access, and voter roll purges have long suppressed the voices from communities of color, immigrant, and low-income communities. It is time for New Yorkers to come together to demand the State bring every voice to the table instead of upholding practices that rip the rug from beneath us."

"The New York Civil Liberties Union continues to receive and investigate reports from New Yorkers who were unable to participate in last month's primary," said NYCLU Legislative Counsel Erika Lorshbough. "New York City voters describe broken ballot scanners and poorly informed poll workers, unauthorized party enrollment changes, misprinted paper poll books omitting active and eligible voters, and possible improper purges of voters. The right to vote is central to our democracy and society, and the New York City Board of Elections must take decisive steps to ensure these irregularities do not recur on November 6th."

Background:

In October 2017, the New York City Board of Elections (NYCBOE) settled a lawsuit with Common Cause/NY, admitting it broke state and federal law when it purged nearly 200,000 voters from the rolls ahead of the presidential primary in April 2016.

In the settlement, NYCBOE agreed to:

• Place the NYC BOE under a consent decree that will last at least through the November 2020 election.
• Adopt detailed procedures to ensure that eligible voters are not designated for removal in error, identify procedures used for reinstating improperly removed voters, and produce monthly and annual reports identifying the voters who are being removed the rolls or otherwise subjected to list maintenance.
• Develop a centralized process allowing the NYC BOE to review voter registration data from borough offices, adopt a training program for list maintenance, and update training manuals and materials.
• Conduct an annual audit of list maintenance procedures, and permit the New York Attorney General's office to conduct semi-annual audits.
• Other enforcement remedies, such as allowing Plaintiffs the ability to object to Board rules or regulations related to list maintenance that fails to ensure compliance with federal law.

This year, Let NY Vote, formerly known as Easy Elections NY, formed as a statewide coalition of organizations & grassroots groups fighting to modernize New York's elections. The goal is to pass simple solutions in 2019 to improve our elections and remove barriers to registering and voting for all eligible New Yorkers.

The Let NY Vote coalition is made up of over thirty organizations, nonprofits, and labor unions, including Common Cause/NY, Public Citizen, New York State United Teachers, SEIU 32BJ, RWDSU, CWA District 1, as well as the statewide NAACP and the National Action Network, grassroots organizations, faith groups, civil liberties, reproductive and immigrant rights, criminal justice and re-entry groups, New American, and the LGBTQ community. A full list is available at letnyvote.org.