Politics
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I MAY 2019 29
Under the state’s new early voting law, Queens
residents will be able to cast their votes nine days
before Election Day this year. But the BOE plan
submitted to the state this week had just the seven
locations, and “the few sites chosen are not even
convenient for many residents,” Gianaris wrote in
a letter to the Board of Elections.
He charged that BOE had “submitted the mini-mum
necessary for legal compliance, in the process
setting the stage for failure of the early voting
process by only having one site for every 337,000
Queens residents.”
The preliminary list of locations chosen, according
to Gothamist/WNYC are Rentar Plaza in Middle Vil-lage;
LaGuardia Community College in Long Island
City; York College in Jamaica; Queens Borough Hall
in Kew Gardens; Resorts World Casino New York City
at Aqueduct Racetrack in South Ozone Park; the Al
Oerter Recreation Center in Flushing Meadows Corona
Park; and the Rockaway YMCA at Arverne by the Sea.
“Early voting should enable the most people
possible to cast ballots prior to Election Day and
that requires more sites, in more neighborhoods
that are easily accessible to public transportation,”
Gianaris wrote.
Councilman Costa Constantinides took issue
with the BOE for placing a single polling site in
western Queens, at LaGuardia Community College
in Long Island City.
“It is shameful that the Board of Elections has
stymied the ability to vote early in western Queens,”
Constantinides said. “We are on of the densest
parts of the second-most populous section of
New York City, yet our borough will have a paltry
seven sites. Earlier voting is supposed to make
our American right easier, not harder.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio urged the BOE to use $75
million dedicated in his executive budget to open
100 early voting sites across the city.
“We now have a real opportunity in New York to
strengthen our democracy and drive up participa-tion
in our elections,” de Blasio said. “”However, to
take advantage of this opportunity, the Board of
Elections must abandon their age-old practice of
doing the bare minimum. They must do right by New
Yorkers, and we’re giving them the funding to do it.”
During a City Hall hearing on April 30, the
BOE’s executive director Michael Ryan said they
were facing resistance from locations that did
not want to be used for early voting because it
consumed too much time. Each election will now
be an 11-day event for early voting and a set-up
day prior to Election Day.
“The Board of Elections is doing the bare mini-mum
to implement early voting, especially in Queens
where there are more voters assigned to each poll-ing
site than any other borough,” Common Cause
New York Executive Director Susan Lerner said.
“This is not only inexcusable, but likely a violation
of state law. We need between 50-100 voting
centers across the city to serve New Yorkers in
non-traditional locations, close to transportation,
borough-wide, and including city and state facilities.
Both the city and the state have devoted millions
of dollars to make early voting a success. It’s time
for the BOE to step up.”
Photo by Mark Hallum
Voters at St. Margaret School in Middle Village
on Election Day 2018.
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