Broken machines, long lines plague city polls
New Yorkers turned out in droves desperate to make their voices heard in Tuesday’s historic midterm election, only to face problems at polling sites around the city — with some forgoing their votes in frustration.
Reports of malfunctioning ballot scanners, delayed poll openings and rain-drenched voters waiting in long lines flooded social media.
A polling place at the Breukelen Houses in Canarsie, Brooklyn, opened at least two hours late.
“People are being turned away from voting,” poll volunteer Kheeda Cruickshank said on a video she took at the Breukelen Houses Community Center. “This is ridiculous.”
Cruickshank, 26, told the Daily News she showed up at 5:30 a.m. to find the center locked. When no one showed up to open it, she called 911.
By early afternoon, polling woes were so bad at least one elected official called on city Board of Elections honcho Michael Ryan to resign.
“Bad weather and high turnout are no excuse when we have forecasts for both,” City Council Speaker Corey Johnson tweeted. “Michael Ryan needs to resign and we need a full top-to-bottom review of what went wrong.”
Mayor de Blasio waited 15 minutes in Park Slope, but also slammed the Board of Elections.
“This is my critique of the Board of Elections — with all due respect to them — we’ve offered them $20 million to make improvements, reforms. They won’t accept it,” he said after voting around 9:45 a.m.
“It’s not working for people,” he added. “How in the 21st century do you still have poll sites that don’t open? If a school didn’t open in the morning, people wouldn’t accept it, right?”
Ryan blamed this election’s two-page ballots for many of the problems, but described them as isolated issues.
“Overall the percentage of ballot jams is less than onehalf of 1%, but given the number of voters, it still turns out to be significant,” he said.
Historic voter turnout also contributed to the long lines.
Soggy ballots, caused by people waiting in the rain, jammed scanners and brought voting to a near standstill in some instances.
Lee Devore, 39, waited close to two hours before casting his ballot inside P.S. 22 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Voters at the site were told that almost all the scanning machines there were down, so they had to place their ballots inside an emergency bin.
Steffany Nichols, his wife, had to walk out due to the long wait so she could get to work in Brownsville on time.
“She’s going to try to come back tonight,” Devore, an architect, said.
“I’m going to miss a little work. But watching people leave the polls and place votes that may or may not get counted is nauseating.”
It wasn’t just regular New Yorkers who faced long waits.
“My wife waited for an hour,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer. “And I’m going to wait on line, too.”