The COVID-19 epidemic has forced all of us to modify our normal practices and routines. The need to adjust our electoral procedures was inevitable. However, the governor has issued a series of executive orders that have presented conflicting and confusing parameters.

Petitioning for school board members has been suspended, but local school board votes are set for June 9th. How do candidates get on the ballot? A lone individual can potentially phone-in requests for ballot applications as if they were placing take-out orders at a restaurant. This opens the door for widespread fraud. Absentee ballot applications are available online. The state shouldn’t waste money that it currently doesn’t have in order to mail every New Yorker a postage-paid application.

Gov. Cuomo should take a step back, hit his own pause button and develop a realistic contingency plan that better aligns dates, requirements and logistics.

The reality is that municipalities and local Boards of Elections do not have the funding, manpower or infrastructure to carry out these new directives. This executive order has set the stage for dysfunction and failure in June, and is likely a precursor to even more chaos in November. This appears to be the first step to facilitate mail-in voting, which in addition to constitutional concerns, is a recipe for electoral disaster.