More than 84,000 mail-in ballots for New York City Democrats were disqualified in the presidential primary.
The city’s Board of Elections reported that it received 403,103 mail-in ballots for the June primary but revealed this week that it only certified 318,995 mail-in ballots, according to the New York Post. The outlet reported that 84,108 ballots, or 21% of the total, were disqualified for a range of issues, including not providing a postmark, not signing the ballot, or ballots arriving late.
In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order in April that allowed absentee voting for all New Yorkers for the June 23 Democratic primary.
“I am issuing an executive order to ensure every New York voter automatically receives a postage-paid application for an absentee ballot,” the Democrat said at the time.
The news comes as many Democrats push for broader vote-by-mail opportunities during the coronavirus pandemic. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been one of the most vocal Democrats to support mail-in voting for the general election, saying just this week that it’s crucial for voters’ health.
“People should not have to choose between their health and their vote, and that’s very important,” she said.
President Trump and his allies in Congress have denounced mail-in voting, citing corruption and a stall in counting the final tally.
“If you do universal mail-ins with millions and millions of ballots, you are never going to know what the real result of an election is,” Trump said last week. “It’s going to be a very, very sad day for our country.”
The Heritage Foundation compiled a list last year of more than 1,000 documented cases of voter fraud over the last few years. There have been other documented cases of issues with mail-in voting, including 16 million mail-in ballots that went missing in the 2016 and 2018 elections, according to federal data.
“Putting the election in the hands of the United States Postal Service would be a catastrophe,” said J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. “In 2018 and 2016, there were 16 million missing and misdirected ballots.”
