NY faces bigger deluge in mail-in voting in November
Election officials are warning that cash-strapped New York has a lot of work to do before Nov. 3 to ensure it can handle an even bigger flood of absentee ballots in light of a surge in mail-in voting that fueled a six-week delay for results of the June primary.
New York’s rollout of expanded absentee voting this spring has fueled complaints of voter disenfranchisement and worries that voters are growing more distrustful of mail-in voting ahead of November. Election commissioners used a Tuesday legislative hearing to urge lawmakers facing massive revenue shortfalls to provide more funding and time for election workers to mail, process and count ballots in November.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo in April allowed voters to vote by absentee ballot if they feared the spread of COVID-19 at polling sites. He announced the state would mail applications for absentee ballots with prepaid postage to all registered voters.
Election officers worked through the pandemic to process 1.8 million requests for absentee ballots in a primary that saw nearly 40 percent of votes cast by absentee — a monumental sum in a state whose long-restrictive absentee voting system involves fewer than one in ten voters in typical elections.