Bronx Board of Election Part 4 - 'REMAKE'

June 23,2020 was Primary day in New York City. We have entered the month of August 2020 without the official results of the June 23, 2020 primary.

On Monday August 3, 2020 the 'Manual Canvass of the Democratic Party County Committee ED 85/AD 87 of the Bronx is to be done. That appears to be the last race to be counted, as the Board of Elections website says that the other four boroughs have been completed. 

While there are several probable lawsuits the results of the 79th A.D. from member of the Assembly to all party positions are in question. That also goes for the Male District Leader position of the 87th A.D. where names of candidates were put on the ballot as the Board of Elections appealed a judges decision to put those candidates back on the ballot. I was told by BOE spokesperson Valerie Vazquez-Diaz that the ballots had to be printed up before the decision of the appeal by the BOE was handed down. She added that the BOE was not sure that they would win the appeal, so the names of the candidates were placed on the ballots. 

Also in the 79th A.D. the Board of Elections did not do its job to make sure that all the candidates met the residency requirement of five years of residency in the state to run for any assembly position. One candidate Mr. Elvis Santana had only three years of residency in New York State, and should have been knocked off the ballot by the BOE. 

In watching the opening of the Absentee and Affidavit ballots one word came up often, that word being REMAKE. The word remake has two meanings. One as a noun in the film industry is 'one that is remade'. The other as a verb i 'to make anew or a different form. At the Board of Elections the word REMAKE meant that a representative of both parties had to come to the A.D. table where the opening of ballots was going on to take the ballot in question to an area in the back of the room. Then a blank ballot would be taken from the rack of blank ballots that matched the A.D. and E.D. so the BOE workers could fill in the ballot and it could be returned to the counting table.

There were several reason as to why a ballot had to be remade. The ballot was torn in the opening process which would mean it could not go through the ballot scanning machine. Only one of the two ballots was in the envelope, and a blank second ballot had to be made, because the ballot scanning machine registered both paper ballots during the scanning process. The BOE worker found something wrong with the ballot where the vote may not get counted. 

In watching the 79th A.D. ballot opening when remakes were made they appeared to be honest as during the viewing session I was a watcher for one of the candidates, and checked where the marks were on the ballots. I can say there was no pattern of placing marks for only one candidate during the remake process of hundreds of ballots. 

 

Above - The area where all the blank ballots were kept, as you see a BOE worker looking for a certain AD/ED ballot.

Below - The area where the REMAKE ballots were done.

BOE workers returning the remade ballot to the counting table.