Bloomberg: Poll Problems ‘A Royal Screw-Up’

NEW YORK (CBS 2 / WCBS 880/1010 WINS) — There were major problems at the polls on primary day in New York and it’s all connected to the debut of the state’s new electronic voting machines.

New York City spent $160 million on new voting machines, but the roll out was embarrassing.

Some polling places opened as much as four hours late and thousands may have been unable to cast ballots, reports CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer.

“This is a royal screw up and it’s completely unacceptable,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

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Sources told CBS 2 that the list of problems was astonishing, including: broken machines, missing machines, missing emergency ballots and workers totally unprepared to assist voters and resolve technical glitches.

And probably the most unforgivable was the fact that polling places that opened hours late.

One polling place at 38 Water St., in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn was still closed at 8:30 this morning, two and a half hours after its scheduled 6 a.m. start.

Another polling place at 350 Fifth Ave. in Park Slope still wasn’t open at 8:15 a.m.

And most ironic, one at 339 8th St. — Camp Friendship — didn’t open until after 9, because the keys to open the voting machines didn’t arrive.

That’s where Public Advocate Bill de Blasio votes and he was furious.

“Literally we have right now thousands from what I’ve heard already, could be 10,000 New Yorkers turned away, didn’t get to vote, may not get to vote, and that’s outrageous,” de Blasio said.

“Unfortunately, this could decide the election in some cases, literally, which machines were working and which weren’t, could decide this election.”

Mayor Bloomberg blamed the board of elections.

“The board is a remnant of the days when Tammany Hall ran New York. New Yorkers deserve better than this and the time has come to fix it,” Bloomberg said.

As public advocate, de Blasio said he’s going to do the oversight to try to fix the problems, but the elections in November are only seven weeks away.

“I got there at 6:20 a.m. They hadn’t plugged the machines in yet. They weren’t sure how to sign people in. They signed me in, they first gave me a Republican ballot instead of a Democratic ballot,” Judi Wind, a Lower East Side resident, told CBS 2′s Kathryn Brown reports.

State Board of Elections spokesman John Conklin said the reports of problems were at a typical level, no different from what was experienced with the lever machines.

“As far as we’re concerned, it’s the normal amount for an election day,” Conklin said.

In Pelham, three of five new electronic voting machines were out of service when polls opened.

Voters in several districts were turned away or given emergency ballots because of a glitch in optical scan machines making their debut Tuesday. The machines were out of service about two and a half hours.

Strips of paper failed to pop up from the machines. Poll worker Frank Zumpano said it turned out the paper had some glue on the back.

Paper ballots are fed into the machines to be read and tabulated. The system is New York’s attempt to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act.