Let’s Streamline Voting, Local Pols Say

By SIGOURNEY SEALEY

Local officials on Tuesday proposed an arsenal of reforms to the election process – including mail-in and early voting – to avoid the long lines and other problems that plagued the recent presidential contest.

“If we had mail-in, if we had early voting options, if we had the recognition that you don’t need all these excuses to be able to have the right to do absentee ballots,”said Senator Liz Krueger (D-NY), “we would have a radically reduced demand on election day at a specific location where there weren’t enough workers or machines working,”

The officials contended that recruiting more workers at poll sites and improving technology would help the ballot scanners function properly. Better notifications of upcoming elections and polling sites by text messages, email, and automated phoning might also help voters.

“We need a better system. We need better machines. We need more people working at the poll sites,” said Council Member Jessica Lappin (D-Manhattan).

Other suggestions included creating larger districts to shorten lines, increasing the font size on ballots, eliminating voter cards, more poll sites and recruiting more and better-trained poll workers.

“Some of these were poor-planning decisions,” said Councilman Jumaane D. Williams (D-Brooklyn), who pulled this conference together. “Some of these could have been handled better. We should of been able to foresee that there was going to be a problem”

Williams said he wanted to work with the Board of Elections, Committee on Governmental Operations, State Legislature, and Government advocates to make sure these problems do not occur in the future without any problems.

An oversight hearing of the Council Committee on Governmental Operations was scheduled for December 5 to explore the issue.