Op-Ed: Voting by mail must be expanded
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BRONX TIMES R 10 EPORTER, JULY 10-16, 2020 BTR
BY COUNCILMEMBER CARLINA RIVERA
Our City and State just faced a
pivotal election—which included the
presidential primary and races for the
state and congressional leaders who
give a voice to New Yorkers at a time
when we face many crises. Yet, two
weeks later, we are faced with mounting
questions on the administration
of vote-by-mail and no answers for the
failures that disenfranchised voters.
The Board of Elections in New York
City turns Election Day into Groundhog
Day—we see the same problematic
defi ciencies each cycle: despite
a bipartisan cross-ideological desire
to fi x them, they reoccur like clockwork.
The time has come to use the
important expansion of vote-bymail
to fi nally fi x these consistent
problems.
The most critical failure happened
as the Board expanded the use of voteby
mail to allow voters to express their
opinions safely from home. Despite
dangerous fear-mongering from Washington,
the demand for voting by mail
was inspiring—and a hint of what is to
come in November. But the potential
levels of disenfranchisement in the
primary are concerning and need to
be remedied.
We need to know the number of voters
who requested a ballot that didn’t
arrive, who received incorrect ballots
or missing envelopes, and whose applications
never arrived. Let’s increase
language access for vote-by-mail applications
and promote mail ballots
in communities where applications
lagged. Further, the governor must
immediately sign an executive order to
extend those provisions that expanded
absentee voting for the primary to the
General Election.
These are also some other commonsense
reforms that will build trust in
our electoral process and make voting
simpler:
• Allow anyone who applied for a “temporary”
mail ballot for the primary to
opt-out for the General with a mailed
postcard, rather than reapply and optin.
As our pandemic continues, we can
take this easy step to prepare for the
volume of new applications.
Send vote-by-mail applications to all
additional eligible voters before Labor
Day, giving voters almost 2 months to
request ballots. We should further revamp
the online application system to
prepare for the General Election and
allow voters to track their application
status.
• Commit to at least doubling early voting
hours and locations, with adequate
funding by the State and nontraditional
sites explored like the New York
Public Library. New York County, for
example, hosted 12 early voting sites,
one per 83,000 active voters in that
borough. Contrastingly, Miami-Dade
County in Florida, where early voting
has existed since 2004, had one site per
64,700 voters. Additional sites in our
city would decrease the travel needed
for vulnerable New Yorkers to vote
early.
• Allow voters to return their ballots
via secure dropboxes, eliminating
concerns of postmark deadlines
and mail return dates. In many states,
these dropboxes work seamlessly to increase
trust in mail ballots and speed
up the processing and counting of ballots.
• Fund dedicated resources for inhouse
staff to help voters with application
problems. Too many people gave
up on the Board’s help line as unending
waits and language access issues
presented further problems without
dedicated resources.
• Quickly review the capacity issues
and error rates at each mail vendor
contracted to assemble and distribute
absentee ballots. Many of the processing
errors, such as missing return envelopes
or missing ballots, likely originated
at these outside contractors. The
Board must seek concrete assurances
that current contracts can be fulfi lled
properly for the General, and should
seek state assistance to expedite new
contracts that would expand capacity.
• Prioritize transparency. While the
Board eventually made statistics public
on their website after the election,
even states as restrictive as Wisconsin
had daily online tallies to demonstrate
how many applications were processed
and when.
• Begin a public search for a new Executive
Director with a new vision.
These are just some of many options
suggested by reformers and advocates
that can build faith as we prepare
for the most important election in
our lifetime.
The City Council’s oversight is unfortunately
limited, but the state and
city Boards can be made responsive by
public scrutiny and vocal leadership.
While the Board’s structure and operations
needs to be reformed in Albany,
let’s focus on fi xing voting by mail for
future elections in a way that eliminates
our disappointment and ensures
the enfranchisement of every New
Yorker. We need to get it right—and
we can use this summer to demand
change.
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