The absentee vote could trump the in-person vote (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
The New York City Board of Elections is reporting that over 765,000 absentee ballots were distributed to voters before primary day, June 23, vastly exceeding a tally of in-person votes in the Democratic presidential primary, which came to 471,000, with 96% of election precincts reporting.
The number of absentee ballots returned is not fully known yet, and none of the absentee ballots submitted by voters have been counted -- the results of those tallies will not be reported for about a week or more; the absentee count is considered daunting given how expanded the program was this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Board of Elections must receive absentee ballots (postmarked no later than June 23) no later than June 30, and will publish further updates on how many absentee ballots have been returned on Monday, June 29 and Thursday July 2.
The update posted on Friday, June 26 shows the following borough by borough tally:
ABSENTEE BALLOTS - PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY - NYC
COUNTY | DISTRIBUTED | RETURNED (6/26) |
Manhattan | 229,806 | 62,721 |
Bronx | 99,026 | 17,589 |
Brooklyn | 229,670 | 21,396 |
Queens | 181,828 | 59,438 |
Staten Island | 24,701 | 11,964 |
TOTAL | 765,031 | 173,108 |
Using New York City Board of Elections data, the in-person New York City presidential primary vote was as follows:
IN-PERSON TALLY as of 6/23 (unofficial)
Manhattan | 97,448 |
Bronx | 85,344 |
Brooklyn | 159,808 |
Queens | 114,807 |
Staten Island | 13,770 |
TOTAL | 471,177 |
With such a large disparity between the number of absentee ballots sent out and the number of in-person votes (765,000 vs. 471,000) it seems quite possible that the number of absentee ballots actually returned will approach or even match the number of in-person votes. That means the results of the many primaries for Congress, State Senate, State Assembly, and Queens Borough President are very much incomplete, and do not reflect anywhere near the full vote.
It also means that in many close elections, the leaders on primary night could still lose, and different winners emerge, especially elections where the candidates are only separated by a few hundred votes. Only primary night leaders with very large margins could be considered safe winners.
Congressional Rep. Yvette Clarke from Brooklyn, for instance, got 62% of the in-person vote of 59,000, and was more than 26,000 votes ahead of Adem Bunkeddeko, who had about 18%. The Board of Elections reported 75,000 absentee ballots in the congressional district were sent out, meaning Bunkeddekko would have to win a highly lopsided margin of the absentees to overcome the in-person vote. That seems highly unlikely and Clarke could be considered a safe likely winner.
Congressional Rep. Carolyn Maloney, by contrast, although leading on primary night by 648 votes against her leading opponent, Suraj Patel, out of more than 39,000 in-person votes cast, still faces the risk of defeat. The Board of Elections sent out over 109,000 absentee ballots to voters in the 12th Congressional District (which spans three boroughs), more than 2.5 times the number of in-person votes.
How many of those absentee ballots will actually get returned? We don’t know. Maybe some of the ballots got lost in the mail, maybe some of the returns got lost in the mail, some of the voters ended up voting in person, and some voters didn’t do anything. But it seems reasonable to assume the number of absentee votes in NY-12 will exceed, perhaps by a large number, the in-person vote and we have no idea who the winner might be.
Congressional Rep. Eliot Engel seems too far behind to overcome the lead of his opponent, Jamaal Bowman, who has declared victory in NY-16. Engel is losing by 27 percentage points, about 27,000 to 15,000, out of 44,000 votes cast. The Boards of Election, including both the Bronx and Westchester, sent out 61,000 absentee ballots, but some will not be returned. The Board of Elections absentee return rate in the Bronx part of the 16th Congressional district was only 19% by Friday evening (6/26) and the Westchester elections board is not publishing absentee ballot returns. Nonetheless, Engel would have to achieve an overwhelming reversal of the in-person vote to win the election. Bowman seems the certain winner.
Several State Assembly primaries featuring incumbents versus challengers look too close to call. Assemblymember Aravella Simotas, from the 36th District in Astoria, Queens, is behind her challenger, Zohran Mamdani, by almost 600 votes out of nearly 8,000 cast. But over 16,000 absentee ballots were sent out in the 36th, so she could make up her current losing margin.
Michael DenDekker, in the 34th district, also in western Queens, is behind his opponent, Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, 1,417-2,514, or 23%-40%, out of 6,200 in-person votes cast, with two other candidates getting nearly 1,800 combined votes. There were about 13,000 absentee ballots sent out. Can Assemblymember DenDekker make up a margin of 1,100 from the absentees? It is certainly still possible if daunting.
In Brooklyn two incumbent Assemblymembers are ahead but the elections are quite close. Assemblymember Walter Mosley, from Fort Greene-Clinton Hill, is ahead by 588 votes, 7,482-6,894, out of 14,414 in-person votes cast, over challenger Phara Souffrant Forrest. But almost 26,000 absentee ballots were sent out in this high-voting Brooklyn district, clearly opening the possibility that the challenger can catch up.
Assemblymember Felix Ortiz from Sunset Park leads his nearest challenger, Marcela Mitaynes, by 464 votes, 2,391-1,927, out of nearly 6,200 in-person votes cast. Two other challengers got 1,850 votes between them, and there were 8,841 absentee ballots sent out. The Friday evening report of absentee ballots returned in the district was only 820, less than 10%. Why this district and the other Brooklyn districts are showing return rates of less than 10% while the other boroughs return rates posted June 26 were significantly higher is not clear. But if the Brooklyn absentee ballot returns ultimately approach those of the other boroughs Ortiz’s opponent might still catch up.
Assemblymember Joe Lentol, a 47-year incumbent from Greenpoint, leads his opponent, Emily Gallagher, by more than 1,700 votes, 6,608-4,845, out of 11,500 in-person votes cast. Nearly 17,000 absentee ballots were sent out in the vote-rich 50th Assembly District. Gallagher seems unlikely to overcome that large a margin, but with such a significant number of absentees over the in-person vote, it is certainly not impossible.
Expansion of Mail Balloting May Help Produce an Immense City Democratic Primary Turnout Despite Pandemic
The two largest Democratic primary turnouts in recent history were the highly competitive and well-publicized 2016 Sanders-Clinton presidential primary, with 996,000 votes, and the 2018 gubernatorial primary between Andrew Cuomo and Cynthia Nixon, with 855,000 votes.
But this year traditional in-person campaigning largely vanished due to the pandemic. Candidates and their supporters were not knocking on doors or pumping out literature at subways, street fairs, supermarkets, and farmers’ markets to anywhere near the same degree. Instead, every Democratic voter got an absentee ballot application. The voter had to send in the application, get the ballot back, and then send in the ballot. The campaigns used direct mail, phone banking, texting,and social media.
The in-person tally is likely to reach about 500,000 votes despite the pandemic. 765,000 absentee ballots were mailed out by the New York City Board of Elections. If 500,000 of these ballots are returned, New York City Democratic voters will match the turnout in the last presidential primary despite this year’s Democratic presidential primary being effectively over because Vice President Biden has already clinched the nomination. If 50% of the absentee ballots are returned (382,500), the City will exceed the turnout of the 2018 gubernatorial primary.
Driving turnout this year are the many Democratic primaries. Eleven of the 13 congressional districts in the city have primaries, there are 26 Assembly district primaries, ten State Senate primaries, the Queens Borough President primary, and dozens of party office primaries. The local competitions helped compensate for the possible lack of interest in the presidential primary.
There’s a Results Lag But Big Changes Afoot with Constitutional Amendment on Absentee Ballot Voting
If a trend toward large numbers of mail ballots continues, we won’t know the results of elections on election nights if the races are close, but increasing participation seems like a good bet if we make no-excuse absentee voting permanent. A constitutional amendment is required in New York to institutionalize such a change.
The New York Constitution requires a reason for a voter to vote absentee, like illness, disability, or absence from the state on election day. Through executive order Governor Cuomo added COVID-19 (risk of serious illness or death) as a valid reason to vote by absentee this year, but we all hope COVID-19 will subside soon. The New York Legislature is in the process of putting the constitutional change on the ballot for November 2021. The Legislature voted in 2019 to do this and has to vote again in 2021 to get the question before the electorate that fall.
Absentee Balloting Differences Under Current System
There were major differences by borough in the percentage of persons who voted in person during early voting or on primary day versus the number of absentee ballots sent out by the Board of Elections in each borough. Every voter was supposed to at first receive an absentee ballot application, and had to send the application in before the Board sent out the ballot. Here’s a look at the percentage of in-person votes by borough compared to the number of absentee ballots distributed by the Board by borough:
IN-PERSON VOTES AS % OF ABSENTEE BALLOTS DISTRIBUTED
IN-PERSON | ABSENTEE BALLOTS SENT | % | |
Manhattan | 97,448 | 229,806 | 42.4 |
Bronx | 85,344 | 99,026 | 86.2 |
Brooklyn | 159,808 | 229,670 | 69.6 |
Queens | 114,807 | 181,828 | 63.1 |
Staten Island | 13,770 | 24,701 | 55.7 |
TOTAL | 471,177 | 765,031 | 61.6 |
In more affluent Manhattan, the in-person vote was only 42% of the number of absentee ballots distributed to voters there. Two-and-a-half times as many voters sought an absentee ballot in Manhattan as went to the polls in person (230,000 versus 97,000). By contrast, in the Bronx, the city’s poorest borough, the number of persons who voted in person nearly equaled the number of persons who were sent absentee ballots, meaning the number of eligible persons who applied for them (85,000 versus 99,000, or 86%). The other boroughs had a mid-range compared to the richest and the poorest.
Why was this? This is an important question to ponder and study. Issues such as mail delivery, ballot application messaging, stresses of the public health and economic crises, and more need to be considered. Obviously mailing only the ballots themselves could have an impact on participation more broadly.
There were plenty of anecdotal reports that voters got their absentee ballots too late and ended up voting in person. I may be overestimating how many absentee ballots were returned. Like any election, there will be a round of significant problems uncovered. The Board of Elections will need greater accountability as we move toward more absentee ballots, like reporting requirements on a regular basis as to how many requests are coming in and when the ballots are being mailed. But there is likely to be a dramatic transformation beginning with the initial broad use of mail-in ballots in New York.
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Jim Brennan was a member of the New York State Assembly for 32 years, where he chaired four committees. On Twitter @JimBrennanNY.
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Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, the author (photo: John McCarten/City Council)
Crises are about our choices, and they reveal our priorities. I've always said that it's easy to be progressive in times of surplus, but that when funding is cut or curtailed, it is all the more important to stand by progressive values.
Addressing the COVID-19 pandemic has put extraordinary strain on the city's finances, and in accounting for this, human responsibility must be paramount. Facing $10 billion in lost tax revenue, sacrifices will be necessary but should not be short-sighted.
This past week, Mayor de Blasio threatened to lay off 22,000 city employees, many of whom would be from the very same communities hardest hit by COVID-19.
We have to meet financial need while preventing human cost.
This is a moment of extraordinary shifts in government and society, rooted in longstanding issues and inequities, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. That pandemic has taken the lives of tens of thousands and the jobs of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, and set in motion the worst economic crisis we’ve seen in a century. With the jobs New Yorkers have already lost, many of which will not return, with the homes they may lose as an end to the eviction moratorium approaches, it is time for drastic but responsible action.
The budget that the mayor is currently proposing would cause further damage for our city in ways we cannot afford by abandoning programs we need and values we hold. Each of the crises we are facing has also disproportionately devastated communities of more color, and the proposed cuts to many social services would be no exception.
The inclination in times of economic downturn is to cut. And of course some sacrifices, major sacrifices, painful sacrifices, will be necessary. But we cannot cut our way out of a crisis – we need to invest in our future. We need to invest in New Yorkers. Cutting programs that are critical to our growth and development – like youth jobs and services – is not a path on which we can grow, it will only take us backward.
There are cuts that can and must be made, but the best path forward for investing in our city is to employ long-term borrowing.
This is a fiscally-sound and clearly-necessary strategy to meet the current economic crisis without further irreparable damage to vital programs and the New Yorkers who rely on them.
Borrowing is not a radical idea. Unlike short-term borrowing, it is not an imprudent proposal. In past crises, we have taken on long-term debt and been able to move forward and build a strong recovery. I believe we must do so again, and fear if we do not, that recovery will not come.
Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the city engaged in this kind of long-term borrowing. It was a necessary step, and we have shown in the time since our ability as a city to use that infusion to recover, grow, and pay down what is owed. Now, we have an even greater economic crisis before us, and it would be irresponsible not to explore how best to use this tool once more. It’s not a partisan issue, not a radical proposal – Mayor Bloomberg was granted such permission through Albany, where the power resides, and now Mayor de Blasio is right to ask for the same.
I understand that many have had a knee-jerk negative reaction to this concept when it was put forward by Mayor de Blasio – and I understand that in this moment our mayor is an imperfect messenger on many things. But this is the right message.
For many, I believe, the fears of long-term borrowing stem from the fiscal crisis in New York City in the 1970s – but they are taking only a partial lesson from that period, a time when austerity cuts to social services did not save the city’s economy but rather devastated the people who should be driving it. After 9/11, faced with a more acute crisis and immediate response, borrowing was the right thing to do, as we’ve shown in the years since.
Right now, the reality is that there are no perfect options and no entirely positive actions. But we have a choice in this moment to accept a difficult path or careen down a devastating one. The greatest impediment to recovery at this time would be even deeper layoffs, even larger unemployment. Avoiding slashing vital programs and the employees that make them possible is paramount.
Voices saying that taking on new debt now in order to avoid debilitating cuts would be making our children solve our problems are approaching this issue wrong – by cutting crucial services, we would create a worse future and cause more damage. Even a modest amount of long-term borrowing -- in the $4-$7 billion range -- now would be critical to securing the city’s economic standing – especially when supplemented by allowing fair taxation of New York City’s millionaires and billionaires, which is crucial in the long-term.
As the budget deadline looms, though, Democrats who control state government in Albany need to immediately grant the city the power to take borrowing action that meets the scope of this crisis. For all his statements of concern and his desire to block city government at every turn, Governor Andrew Cuomo knows this too – after intense pressure from advocates to take the most basic, obvious action, he was willing to accept infusions of borrowed funding on the state level. He cannot now oppose the city trying to do the same.
Austerity is bad policy, no matter who proposes it. It deepens the existing inequities that COVID-19 has already exposed and exacerbated. Make cuts where they are needed, like at the NYPD, but not where such cuts would have deep, lasting, devastating impact on our city’s youth and its future.
Borrowing will lead to a debt we can repay as we recover. Aggressive austerity will lead to damage we may never recover from.
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Jumaane Williams is the New York City Public Advocate. On Twitter @JumaaneWilliams.
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Council Member Rivera at a CLT rally (photo: John McCarten/City Council)
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York faces two new fronts in its housing crisis -- a wave of heightened speculation likely to destabilize communities and an onslaught of expected evictions as housing courts reopen.
As Mayor de Blasio and the City Council approach the June 30 deadline for voting on the fiscal year 2021 budget, communities of color hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic are not seeing anywhere near the requisite level of support to combat these crises.
Although the city faces real fiscal challenges, we must reject austerity measures that would disproportionately harm Black and brown communities already reeling from coronavirus, job losses, and so many other glaring inequities. Instead, we must ensure a budget that prioritizes neighborhood equity and lays groundwork for a just recovery -- starting with support for community land trusts (CLTs).
Last year, the city provided groundbreaking funding to help launch a dozen CLTs in neighborhoods across the city -- a crucial step toward giving communities control over land and housing. The city should renew funding for the citywide CLT initiative to address the deepening housing crisis and continue to advance community-led development.
Rooted in civil rights struggles in the South, CLTs combine land ownership and management with community organizing. Community residents work together to collectively decide how to acquire and develop land, meet community needs and preserve affordability for future generations.
One of the most successful CLTs in the country is right here on the Lower East Side. For almost 30 years, the Cooper Square CLT has stewarded hundreds of units of permanently-affordable housing and dozens of commercial storefronts with below-market rents. The CLT and its affiliated Mutual Housing Association reach deep affordability through economies of scale, ensuring that rents remain affordable at levels that meet neighborhood needs.
Inspired by the success of Cooper Square and other CLTs across the country, a new generation of land trusts is emerging across the city -- from Tremont and Melrose to Jackson Heights, East New York, and beyond -- to take land and housing out of the speculative market, for good. Continued support is critical as CLTs move toward acquiring property for deeply and permanently affordable housing, retail and arts spaces, and other community needs.
But we also need to give CLTs, along with mutual and resident-controlled housing, the tools they need to succeed.
That’s why we’re also fighting for passage of two pieces of legislation -- the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) in the City Council and the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) in the State Legislature.
COPA would immediately give CLTs, non-profit affordable housing developers, and other organizations a right of first refusal whenever landlords decide to sell apartment buildings or property, ensuring they have time to secure and develop the funds necessary to make competitive offers on available property. TOPA would give the same right of first refusal to individual tenant organizations to purchase their own properties.
The need -- and opportunity -- for CLTs and community ownership initiatives has never been greater. As land and housing prices tumble in the wake of COVID-19, CLTs will be critical to guard against ramped-up real estate speculation, which wreaked havoc in Black and brown communities after the 2008 financial crash. Foreclosures rarely occur on CLT-owned land, as just one example of their stabilizing impact. With land trusts forming across the five boroughs, the time to redouble our commitment to this model is now.
In his State of the City speech earlier this year, Mayor de Blasio announced his administration’s support for CLTs, including a commitment to add 3,000 units of housing on CLT land over two years. The mayor and the Council must deliver on this pledge.
The coronavirus has brutally exposed inequities in our city, and the insufficiency of current approaches to housing, health care, and so much more. A just recovery will require centering solutions developed by community residents to achieve true community safety and self-determination. New York City should make sure that CLTs and community-led development are part of the equation.
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City Council Member Carlina Rivera represents parts of Manhattan. Deyanira Del Río is Co-Director of New Economy Project. On Twitter @CarlinaRivera & @deydelrio.
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