The mail-in ballot woes continue, this time in Brooklyn where the New York City elections board confirmed today that a printing error led to 100,000 voters receiving the wrong ballot return envelopes this week. The envelope, in New York City is called an “Oath Envelope” that includes the voter’s name, address and voter identification number. If the ballot name doesn’t match the oath envelope name, the ballot would be invalid.
On Tuesday, Valerie Vazquez-Diaz, a spokesperson for the NYC election board said the wrong envelopes were mailed to 99,477 voters in the borough. A third party vendor, Phoenix Graphics has been blamed for the mixup.
“brooklyn absentee voters! I received my absentee ballot today with the wrong name/address/voter ID on the ballot envelope. brooklyn BOE says this mess up affected at least 500 voters but up to 123k. please *check your envelopes* and call your BOE if you find anything amiss!!” said one Brooklyn voter on Twitter.
The Brooklyn GOP Organization wasted no time raising an issue with mail-in ballot voting.
“This is why we are urging everyone to vote safely in-person. We just learned of a ballot harvesting scheme, and every day NYers are reading story after disastrous story. If you vote in person, your vote is secure and it can’t be stolen on a technicality,” the organization said.
Brooklyn Assemblyman Robert Carroll said for the Board of Elections to lay all the blame on the vendor was wrong.
“The buck should stop with NYC Board of elections,” Carrol said. “It’s cheap to blame an outside vendor. But thanks for finally giving guidance.”
The Brooklyn BOE is now asking residents who received a wrong envelope with their ballot to call 1-866-VOTE-NYC.