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Mayor de Blasio Calls for Immediate Re-Count of Democratic Mayoral Primary

Mayor de Blasio Calls for Immediate Re-Count of Democratic Mayoral Primary

By Yehudit Garmaise

     After the Board of Elections (BOE) admitted last night that they accidentally included “test” results in its vote count, leading to 135,000 extra ballots, Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has been critical of the city’s election agency said today, “Yet again, the fundamental structural flaws of the Board of Elections are on display.”

   After waiting in hours to vote last fall, the mayor said, “I presented a plan to remake the Board of Elections. I offered the BOE over $20 million to reform themselves.

     “They refused, leaving legislative action as the next available recourse.” 

   The legislative action to which Mayor de Blasio refers is a bill, sponsored by state Sen. Liz Krueger and Assembly Member Nily Rozic, that would immediately professionalize the BOE in its current form and make them directly accountable to New York City’s elected officials.

   The mayor also proposed that New York amend its state Constitution to allow for “a new, professional board, removed of party affiliation.

     “It’s a necessary, fundamental change.”

     Mayor de Blasio, who called for “an immediate, complete recanvass of the BOE’s vote count and a clear explanation of what went wrong, said, “The record number of voters who turned out this election deserve nothing less.”   

     The mismanagement of New York City’s first ranked-choice election was first noticed by frontrunner Eric Adams, who noticed that the BOE’s preliminary election results yesterday revealed that 941,832 New Yorkers cast votes, while on Election Day, on June 22, only 799,827 were counted.

   After removing its previous election results from its website last night, the BOE posted a message that merely said, “Unofficial Rank Choice Results Starting on June 30.”

     “It has been determined that ballot images used for testing were not cleared from the Election Management System,” the BOE tweeted by way of explanation. 

    Apparently, the BOE produced approximately 135,000 additional votes by including “both test and election night results,” in yesterday’s count.

     The BOE, which has said that it has removed all of the test ballots from the count, will re-run the results, although when the new results will be released is unclear. 

     The results of the election are further cast into confusion after, a total of 219,944 ballots “with no choices left” were listed as “inactive.” Plus, the city has just begun to count 124,000 absentee ballots sent by mail.

     “Today’s mistake by the Board of Elections was unfortunate,” Adams tweeted last night. “It’s critical that New Yorkers are confident in their electoral system, especially as we rank votes in a citywide election for the first time.” 

     “New Yorkers want free and fair elections, which is why we overwhelmingly voted to enact ranked-choice voting,” Garcia said in a press release. “The BOE’s release of incorrect ranked-choice votes is deeply troubling and requires a much more transparent and complete explanation.”

 Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.


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