Schumer Has Problems at Polls: "I Want to Vote!"

A source tells the Daily News that Senator Chuck Schumer, a Park Slope resident, had considerable difficulty voting this morning. Polling places are required to open at 6 a.m. in New York, but the source says, "They don't open the polling place until 6:10... They can't figure out how to open the machine and he is, like, screaming at the staff that he wants to vote." Another source says, "First, the site opened late. Second, the room was in a different location. Third, there were only 2 machines, and workers told him there were supposed to be 8. And 4th, the machines did not boot-up on time." Straphangers Campaign advocate Gene Russianoff also had big problems in Park Slope.

Russianoff's wife tried voting at 6:30 and he tried at 7:45. But he tells The Daily Politics, . "But both times we were told they 'still did not have the key to the ballot box.' My voting site didn't open until about 8:30 a.m. I vote at a place called Camp Friendship in Park Slope, Brooklyn. It's on 8th Street, btw 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue... I ended up voting at nine, but ran into one voter earlier who couldn't stay and who said she was working until 9 pm."

Camp Friendship is also Public Advocate Bill de Blasio's polling place, and he tells City Room, "Whatever the exact protocol is, it didn’t happen this morning. It’s very troubling. This is a very high voting site. It’s ridiculous that it took by one account by 8:30 a.m., by another count 9:30 a.m., to open up. So basically, the folks in Park Slope were disenfranchised this morning. The irony is these are the machines that were supposed to resolve the problems in 2000." It's being reported that some polling places in Brooklyn did not open for more than 90 minutes.

A source tells WNYC's Azi Paybarah that Mayor Bloomberg will address reports of voting problems later today. Did you vote today? Let us know how it went... didn't.