Cuo floats Guard duty for election

Gov. Cuomo is finally ready to call out the National Guard — to staff polling places on Election Day.

After placing the Guard “on standby” but not sending them in as riots raged in New York City over the summer, Cuomo said Monday he might deploy troops to ensure that voters can cast in-person ballots in the Nov. 3 presidential election.

In a teleconference with reporters, Cuomo said “the Board of Elections is basically a person-powered staffing function” and that the June 23 primary elections “showed a lot of issues with the local boards.”

“We said to them, ‘Learn from that experience, tell us what you need,’ ” he said. “We can use National Guard personnel to help.”

Cuomo added that he’s also prepared to have state and local government employees idled by the coronavirus crisis fill in for poll workers, even though Election Day is among the 12 legal holidays recognized by the Empire State. Any government staffers who work that day would be entitled to overtime pay or another day off.

In June, President Trump ripped Cuomo for not using the National Guard to quell looting that erupted in New York City amid protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“We’ll send you the National Guard if you want,” Trump said during a June 1 conference call with Cuomo and other governors. “You have the largest police force in the country, 40,000 people, I understand, but what’s going on in New York is terrible, it’s terrible, of all the places.”