There Are More Locations For Early Voting In NYC, Including Dozens Of Schools

The New York City Board of Elections expanded the number of early voting poll sites from 104 for the June primary to 106 for the upcoming general election, despite what is expected to be a relatively low turnout contest, and it will continue to rely on public schools during the early voting period of October 23rd through the 31st.

The list of early voting sites also includes a handful of the city’s marquee cultural institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum, the David Rubenstein atrium at Lincoln Center, and The Brooklyn Museum, which all agreed when the city BOE asked them to open their doors to votes.

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But the 24 public schools — one more than during the primary election -- are the only locations that cannot legally opt out of the BOE’s civic call-to-duty, despite the ongoing space constraints and logistical concerns caused by COVID-19.

The use of public schools for early voting has become a perennial sticking point since the law was implemented in 2019, only made worse by the ongoing pandemic. The city BOE acknowledged as much at a state Senate hearing on elections last month.

“We don't want to use schools. We want to stay away from schools as much as we possibly can,” said Michael Ryan, the city BOE’s executive director. But at the same time, he said elections officials need more space and while he credited the handful of cultural institutions for stepping up, he stressed the city BOE doesn’t have guaranteed access to any public buildings besides schools.

For the June primary election, the New York City Board of Elections designated 104 early voting sites, including 23 schools. At the time, many schools were operating with a hybrid model and only 365,000 students attended in-person full-time, out of nearly 1 million public school kids.

In this current school year, Mayor Bill de Blasio reopened all the city public schools for in-person learning and removed any remote option for students, which means buildings are far more crowded than they have been in the three previous COVID-19 elections, including the 2020 primary, general election, and the 2021 primary.

With the pandemic making space an even more precious commodity, school administrators continue to complain about losing rooms in their facilities.

“Though we support early voting efforts, we have consistently advocated against using school buildings as voting sites while schools are in session due to safety and logistical concerns,” said Mark Cannizzaro, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, the union that represents city principals.

Schools are also supposed to adhere to the CDC physical distancing requirements, which becomes that much harder when their larger spaces — like cafeterias and gymnasiums — are used for early voting.

“Those concerns are of course even greater during a pandemic as, to our knowledge, the mask and vaccine mandate does not apply to those entering school buildings to vote,” he added.

State Board of Elections Commissioner Douglas Kellner said masks will be required at early sites, according to guidance the agency received from the governor’s office. The state is following protocols from the CDC, which requires usage, regardless of vaccination status, in public indoor settings located within areas of high or substantial COVID-19 transmission.

All five of the city’s boroughs would qualify under that criteria. The guidance would apply to anyone in an early voting or Election Day poll site, including BOE staff, NYPD officers, and voters.

There are state lawmakers who are working to keep schools out of the mix for early voting.

“Unfortunately, when schools are used for early voting it can be very disruptive to students for the better part of two weeks,” said state Senator Liz Krueger. The Manhattan Democrat, who is a strong proponent of early voting, introduced legislation in 2020 that would make it illegal for elections officials to force schools to serve as early voting poll sites.

Krueger’s measure passed the state Senate in January 2020 but has stalled in the Assembly. It would require election officials to use public buildings to the extent possible. If additional sites are needed, the bill directs officials to designate buildings that are tax-exempt or receive more than one million dollars in annual state grants.

“We have to strike a rational balance between the need for a sufficient number of polling places and the need to keep our students safe and learning well. The bill I carry would achieve that by preventing schools from being used as early voting sites, but requiring institutions that receive significant state support to make their spaces available if necessary to fill the gaps," Krueger added.

Beyond issues exacerbated by the pandemic, New York City’s five boroughs remain the only counties in all of New York State that assign voters to one specific early voting site, as opposed to setting up countywide vote centers, which advocates said was the intent under the two year old law and could give voters more options to cast their ballots.

“The exception has become the rule in New York City,” said Jarret Berg, attorney and co-founder of Vote Early NY, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for voting rights. Berg pointed to a 2019 vote by the city BOE commissioners to assign voters to regional sites as opposed to countywide vote centers.

Since that time, the city BOE has continued to expand the number of early voting sites and the hours it makes voting available, but there has been no effort to bring New York City in line with the rest of the state in terms of offering a boroughwide option.

Asked about the issue at that state Senate hearing last month, Ryan, the city BOE executive director said he appreciated the “spirit, intention and authority of the law,” but offered a list of the reasons why the city could not currently conform with it.

He said the electronic poll pads used to check-in voters are currently limited to eight per site, otherwise the devices begin to interfere with each other. Since the poll pads are what’s used to print the ballots, that limited number of devices acts as an impediment to creating larger early voting locations.

Ryan also cited a series of issues related to the technical limitations of the ballot marking devices, machines that allow voters — including voters with disabilities — to mark their ballot privately and independently.

“Nothing in the elections process occurs in a vacuum,” Ryan told lawmakers. “You throw the tiniest pebble into the pond and the ripples go all the way across.”

For voters in New Jersey, in-person early voting is available for the first time. The nine day early voting period begins Saturday, October 23rd, like it does in New York. Here’s more information about early voting in the Garden State.