Early voting kicks off Saturday, a first in NYC for a presidential race, as many New Yorkers have awaited
The moment many New Yorkers have been waiting — and bracing for — is finally here.
Early in-person voting begins Saturday — a first in New York during a presidential election — and the city is expecting not only what could be unprecedented turnout, but also the possibility of partisan clashes at the polls.
Kenneth Sherrill, a Hunter College professor emeritus of political science, said if physical confrontations do arise, he expects they would most likely happen on Election Day, which falls on Nov. 3.
Early voting, he predicted, would be tame by comparison.
“I suspect there are going to be long lines,” he said. “People have made up their minds, they’re not going to change their minds and they want to avoid the Election Day rush.”
Sherrill predicted the biggest potential for problems with early voting are the relatively few in-person polling places and whether or not they’ll be adequately staffed.
“There are going to be screw-ups, and people will get frustrated,” he said. “Some will probably give up and leave and not vote, which is bad.”
There are 88 polling places for early voting, which runs from Oct. 24 to Nov. 1. The NYPD plans to have officers stationed at all of them, as well as at the 1,201 polling sites that will accept ballots on Election Day.
Voters can find their early-voting polling places and the hours they’re open at the city Board of Elections website. Madison Square Garden, Barclays Center, and The Kings Theatre in Brooklyn will each serve as early voting centers.
Mayor de Blasio plans to be one of the thousands of New Yorkers who take advantage of early voting, but suggested on Wednesday that he is also worried about long lines discouraging voters.
“We’re going to try to do a lot of public education through Democracy NYC, because public education has not been a strong suit of the Board of Elections,” he said. “But whatever the board needs in terms of support to make this work, we stand ready.”
The city Board of Elections did not immediately return messages.
Aside from public outreach, de Blasio’s administration already has plans to assist in one other key area: public safety.
The NYPD announced earlier this week that they’ve been stepping up preparations for what many expect will be a chaotic election season.
For weeks, the department has been preparing for street demonstrations like the ones that racked the city this summer, as well as cyber-attacks.
“The NYPD is fully prepared to protect every person’s right to vote,” Chief of Department Terance Monahan said earlier this week. “It is no secret that this election is more contentious than years past. For that reason, our plan also includes the ability to respond to any type of incident that may occur.”
Violent confrontations have marred early voting in other states, a trend political scientist Larry Sabato expects to see continue as Election Day nears. But Sabato suggested that because New York is a city dominated by Democrats, the likelihood of that happening here is lower.
If anything, he said, early voting should serve to protect voters from COVID-19 and will reduce the time spent waiting in line on Election Day.
“It ought to help the process,” he said. “It certainly will help people stay healthy.”
Jerry Goldfeder, a veteran elections lawyer, is also optimistic. He said that while confrontations have taken place in other parts of the country, the city’s political culture has historically lent itself to less rancor when it comes to casting ballots.
“I do not expect the kind of thuggery we’ve seen in other states,” he said. “It might go slowly, but I expect it will go relatively smoothly.”
