Albany, NY – As the June 23 ballot fiasco continues to unfold, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz has introduced legislation to ensure that future absentee voters are not disenfranchised due to problematic postal procedures. The legislation would supersede recent court precedent for future elections by creating a three-day period where absentee ballots without a postmark can be presumed to have been mailed on time and will be counted.

The June 23 primary election saw a very high volume of absentee ballots being cast, resulting in significant delays and problems with voters who did not receive absentee ballots with sufficient time to return them before election day. This challenge was compounded by the reported failure of USPS to stamp all absentee ballot envelopes with the postmark that is required for NYC Board of Elections to count the enclosed vote. Consequently, numerous absentee ballots were discarded through no fault of the voter and voter efficacy in the absentee voting process has been eroded.

In response to the rejection of otherwise valid absentee ballots due to a missing postmark, several campaigns successfully sued the NYC Board of Elections and a federal court ordered that all ballots received without a postmark by the day after the election (June 24) be counted. This decision is being appealed by the New York State Board of Elections. The legislation from Assemblyman Dinowitz would go further than the courts ordered by requiring ballots received within three days after the election to be counted if they are missing a postmark.

The New York State Assembly passed legislation in July from Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte that required absentee ballots missing a postmark received on the day after the election to be presumed as having been mailed on time. That legislation has passed the State Senate as well and is awaiting their delivery to the Governor.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D - Bronx) said: “It is absolutely ridiculous that a voter who did everything right would have their ballot invalidated because the post office failed to stamp a postmark. I appreciate that both USPS and our board of elections are being asked to do a lot more work at the same time as the federal government drags its feet on providing the necessary resources to do their jobs, but our jobs as legislators must be focused on protecting people’s right to vote. It is reasonable to assume that a ballot received within three days of the election was mailed by election day, and those ballots should be counted.”