Margaret Garnett, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Investigation (“DOI”), issued a report today on DOI’s investigation into defective absentee ballots produced by Rochester, New York-based Phoenix Graphics, Inc., for the 2020 General Election in New York City. In late September 2020, numerous voters in Brooklyn received absentee ballot packages containing “oath envelopes” pre-printed with names and addresses that were not theirs, prompting the City Board of Elections (“BOE”) to announce that approximately 99,000 packages assembled as part of that print run would be re-printed and mailed to voters at Phoenix Graphics’ expense. DOI investigated the circumstances surrounding these faulty absentee ballots as well as whether the BOE properly awarded a contract to Phoenix Graphics. DOI found no evidence that there was intentional interference regarding the defective absentee ballot packages. DOI also determined that while there was no competitive bid process to procure the contract, the award was consistent with emergency procurement authority granted to the BOE. A copy of the full report follows this release and can also be found at the following link: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doi/newsroom/public-reports.page
DOI Commissioner Margaret Garnett said, “DOI found no intent or motivation to intentionally disrupt Phoenix Graphics’ print run of the absentee ballots; nor did DOI find that the BOE improperly awarded a contract to Phoenix Graphics. DOI also found no evidence that a data deletion during a software installation was purposeful. The facts determined during this investigation are consistent with some deficiencies in Phoenix Graphics’ quality controls and a lapse in the company’s operation of a complex printing process. Although we found no wrongdoing, DOI is issuing this public report in the interests of transparency and the importance of the public’s confidence in the City’s voting process and overall election integrity.”
DOI’s Report found that in April 2020, Governor Cuomo issued Executive Order 202.15, which made mail-in absentee voting temporarily available to all New York voters for the June primary. The State legislature subsequently passed legislation that similarly made mail-in absentee voting available to any eligible voter in the November 2020 general election. Because the demand for absentee ballots increased dramatically, the BOE required assistance from outside vendors to print those ballots. The BOE reached out to three printing companies with which it had existing relationships to determine if they could assist in printing these ballots on short notice. Two of the three companies, one of which was Phoenix Graphics, agreed to take on the work. In a May 2020 internal memo, BOE Executive Director Michael Ryan certified that there was insufficient time to conduct a competitive bid process in connection with the printing of absentee ballots for the 2020 elections and directed the BOE’s Agency Chief Contracting Officer “to negotiate with the Board’s current Election Day Ballot printers to provide printing and mailing services.” The BOE’s June 2020 contract with Phoenix Graphics referenced gubernatorial Executive Order 202.26, which allowed county boards of election to procure absentee ballots “without the usual advertising for bids and offers and compliance with existing procurement policies and procedures.” Phoenix Graphics was awarded a contract valued at $4.6 million to print absentee ballots for voters in Brooklyn and Queens.
DOI interviewed the president of Phoenix Graphics Salvatore DeBiase under oath, who explained in detail the company’s printing and assembly process for absentee ballots, including during the several day timeframe in September 2020 that the mismatched ballots were produced. The Report indicates that DeBiase explained the machine has no mechanical parts that can be controlled remotely and that in September 2020 he was informed by the BOE that hundreds of voters in Brooklyn had complained of receiving oath envelopes with someone else’s name and address printed on them. DeBiase also told DOI that the cause of the faulty ballot packages was not immediately clear; that his staff tried to re-create different scenarios and found two mechanical parts that, if not adjusted properly before the print run, could result in oath envelopes pushed onto an incorrect pile. During the affected print run in September 2020, there was an employee operating the machine who recalled observing one oath envelope fall on top of the wrong pile, but he did not see any more oath envelopes drop into the wrong pile. The employee conducted spot checks throughout the run but did not identify any additional mismatched oath envelopes.
The printing and insertion machine can usually generate a detailed report about every print job, but DeBiase stated that by the time he learned of the problem and sought to generate such a report, the machine’s history had been deleted as a result of a software installation. DOI’s investigation revealed no evidence that the data deletion, as a result of software installation, was purposeful or done with any knowledge of the ballot printing errors.
DeBiase and two other Phoenix Graphics employees testified that they had no reason to believe that anyone at Phoenix Graphics had deliberately caused the envelope mismatch. In addition, DeBiase indicated he has implemented new procedures to prevent similar problems from happening in the future, including: having multiple employees check the layout of the machine to ensure it is set up correctly, extracting the data after each print run so it can no longer be accidentally deleted, conducting more spot checks by opening envelopes at random, inspecting diverted packages, and having employees observe the area where the oath envelope lands to ensure they are landing on top of the correct piles.
Commissioner Garnett thanked the BOE for its cooperation in this investigation.
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