The insanely long lines and screw-ups that New York City voters had to contend with this past election are being reviewed by the City Council. And NY State Board of Elections co-chairman Doug Kellner blasted the NYC Board of Elections, "Frankly, the city board failed in complying."
According to the Daily News, "Kellner said voters cannot wait longer than 30 minutes to cast a ballot — and the board is required to have enough staff to follow that regulation." In many instances, voters were made to wait over an hour—sometimes two hours—to vote.
The NYC BOE has claimed the elections went well, given that Hurricane Sandy was the week before. But there were still loads of problems, like jammed electronic ballot scanners, a lack of paper ballots, and overwhelmed poll workers. Kellner pointed out, "The fact is, is that there were a lot of jurisdictions throughout the United States that did far worse than New York City without the complications of Superstorm Sandy." As City Councilman Jumaane Williams said, who witnessed massive problems in his Brooklyn district, the NYC BOE "succeeded at failing beyond my wildest expectations. For voters to believe that there is a conspiracy to disenfranchise them reveals a crisis in our democracy."
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has admitted that some of the issues the NYC BOE faced were the result of a lack of funding.
