Village, SoHo voters flood the polls for early voting
A long line waits to get in to vote at St. Anthony of Padua Church in SoHo. PHOTOS BY TEQUILA MINSKY
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
They came. They saw. They
voted early.
Thousands of New
Yorkers assembled long lines at
88 sites across the fi ve boroughs
on Saturday to cast their ballots in
the 2020 presidential election on
the fi rst day of early voting.
Lines ran for blocks in many
places on Oct. 24 as voters of
ages, colors and creeds gathered
to make their voices heard in the
all-important election between
the Republican incumbent ticket
of President Donald Trump and
Vice President Mike Pence
against the Democratic duo of
former Vice President Joe Biden
and California Senator Kamala
Harris.
Not long after polls closed at 4
p.m. Saturday, the city’s Board of
Elections announced that 93,830
New Yorkers had voted that day
— far exceeding the 60,110 early
voters during the entire 2019 fall
election cycle, in which few competitive
races were on the ballot.
On average, each early voting
site on Oct. 24 had about 1,066
voters show up between 10 a.m.
and 4 p.m. — or about 178 voters
per hour of operation.
Brooklyn had the most early
voters in the city on Saturday,
with 29,411, followed by Manhattan
with 19,877; Queens with
19,223; the Bronx with 14,928;
and Staten Island with 10,391.
Saturday marked the first
time New Yorkers got a chance
to vote early in a presidential
election. They join the more than
50 million Americans who have
already cast votes in the race in
other states where early voting is
available.
Manhattan early voting sites
were anything but a “ghost town”
on Saturday. At the Church of
St. Anthony of Padua, residents
Actress Edie Falco waits to
vote in SoHo.
of the neighborhood as well as
Little Italy and Greenwich Village
gathered on a line that snaked
four blocks around the house of
worship to cast their ballots.
Voters began gathering at the
entrance as early as 7 a.m. Saturday
morning. The line moved
after the polls opened, and voters
relished the opportunity to fi nally
make their voice heard in the
election.
Reed Hays of Greenwich Village
was the fi rst person on line
to get into St. Anthony of Padua
for early voting.
NYC expands early voting hours for this weekend
after 400,000+ cast ballots
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
Truly a case of meeting popular demand, the New
York City Board of Elections announced Tuesday
that it will expand hours for the fi nal three days of
early voting this weekend.
During their Oct. 27 meeting, the board’s commissioners
agreed to add nine additional hours to the early voting
schedule between Friday, Oct. 30, and Sunday, Nov. 1. The
decision came as a result of massive turnout at the city’s
88 early voting poll sites since Saturday, Oct. 24 — with
more than 300,000 voters participating, many of whom
having had to wait in very long lines.
Friday’s voting period, which was to run from 7 a.m. to
3 p.m., will instead be extended by two hours in the afternoon,
with early voting sites open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday’s scheduled period, which was originally 10
a.m. to 4 p.m., will instead run from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. —
with three additional morning voting hours and one extra
hour in the afternoon.
Finally, the last day of early voting on Sunday, which was
to be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., will instead be extended by
three hours in the morning, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Editor’s
note: Nov. 1 is the end of daylight savings time; set your
clocks back one hour at 2 a.m. Sunday morning).
There are no changes to voting hours for Wednesday,
Oct. 28 (12 to 8 p.m.) or Thursday, Oct. 29 (10 a.m. to
6 p.m.).
The polling hours for Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3,
remain unchanged, with the more than 14,000 polling
places in New York City open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Betsy Gotbaum, the city’s former public advocate and
current executive director of Citizens Union, applauded
the board for its decision.
“Over the past three days, we’ve been inspired by the
hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who fl ocked to
poll sites to take advantage of early voting. Unfortunately,
we also saw too many infuriating anecdotes about how
voters had to wait on line for hours to cast their ballots. We
must do better,” Gotbaum said. “We’re glad the Board of
Elections has recognized the enthusiasm for early voting,
and has increased hours at early voting locations.”
Much like regular polling sites, your early voting location
is based on where you live. You can learn where to cast
PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
an early vote by using the “Find My Poll Site” tool on the
Board of Elections website, vote.nyc. Plug in your home
address and ZIP code on the Find My Poll Site application
and you’ll be able to view your designated early voting site
and the regular polling place open on Election Day.
Through the third day of early voting on Oct. 26, the
Board of Elections tallied 314,723 check-ins — more than
fi ve times the number of early voters in the entire off-year
November 2019 election cycle.
So far, Brooklyn has the most early voters with 101,283,
followed by Manhattan with 69,805; Queens with 65,728;
the Bronx with 46,575; and Staten Island with 31,332.
Visit vote.nyc for additional information on voting.
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6 October 29, 2020 Schneps Media