New York, NY – For many years, as the New York State Legislature debated early voting, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz repeatedly sounded the alarm about problematic wording that disadvantaged large counties. The law creating an early voting program, passed in January of this year, specifies the number of early voting sites as apportioned by a ratio of at least one polling place per 50,000 registered voters in each county but also adds that no county shall be required to establish more than seven total polling places. This means that counties with more than 350,000 registered voters would functionally be required to offer less access to early voting locations than smaller counties. The exemption for large counties affects Kings, Queens, New York, Suffolk, Bronx, Nassau, Westchester, Erie, and Monroe – all of which have at least 450,000 registered voters.

Although the New York City Board of Elections did not offer more than the minimum required number of early voting sites in any borough except for Brooklyn, Mayor Bill de Blasio has already offered $75 million in city funding to pay for additional early voting locations throughout New York City. Mayor de Blasio has requested 100 early voting precincts, which is almost three times as many as the 38 that NYC BOE identified.

The Bronx, which has over 800,000 registered voters and has notoriously difficult intra-borough transit options, was only granted seven polling places and notably excluded major hubs of registered voters in the Northwest Bronx, Co-Op City, and large swaths of the central Bronx. The Bronx also has historically struggled with voter turnout, something which early voting is supposed to help improve, as less than half of all registered voters in the Bronx cast their ballots in the 2016 Presidential election. Less than a quarter of all registered Bronx voters cast their ballots in the 2017 Mayoral election.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D - Bronx) said: “I am very disappointed that the NYC Board of Elections chose to only fulfill their minimum obligations to provide polling places for early voting, instead of doing what is in the best interest of our democracy. Early voting is an essential component of making it easier for New Yorkers to vote, and it would be an absolute travesty to allow this to be undermined by the inadequate provision of polling places. If more early voting locations are not added, then people in our city will effectively be denied their right to vote early as recently established by the State of New York.

“There are many people in my district and throughout the Bronx that are disabled or otherwise unable to travel long distances to cast their ballots. We cannot allow a program to be implemented that creates a system where some people’s voting rights are being more enfranchised than others, and that is what the current proposal does. It is unacceptable. The Board of Elections should be creating a solution that is conducive to helping people vote as easily as possible, and that is not what this plan does.”