What Is The Bronx Board of Elections Hiding?

By Robert Press

The count of Absentee Ballots in the Bronx began on Monday July 6th. There are eleven Assembly Districts in the Bronx. One week later, only one Assembly District, the 83rd has been completed. There were no state primaries for any of the elected or party positions in the 83rd A.D., so only Presidential and the 16th Congressional District ballots had to be counted. The number of Absentee ballots returned in the 83rd A.D. was 3,884, not counting any ballots that may have been ruled void for one reason or another.

One has to wonder why the Bronx Board of Elections has not started with the 77th Assembly District, and ended with the 87th Assembly District. The Bronx Board of Elections did the 83rd A.D. first, followed by the 81st, 82nd, 80th, and 84th A.D.'s, which are still being counted. The 85th and 86th A.D.'s have been added for Tuesday July 14th. That leaves the 77th, 78th, 79th, and 87th A.D.'s to be counted, with the 77th, 79th, and 87th being part of the 15th Congressional District.

There were problems in the 79th and 87th A.D.'s where candidates appeared on the official and absentee ballots when they were ruled off the ballot on an appeal by the Board of Elections of a judge's decision to put those candidates back on the ballot after the Board of Elections ruled them initially off the ballot. I was told by a high ranking Board of Elections administrator that the ballots were printed before the final judges decision came down, due to time restraints in the printing of the ballots. I was also told that the Board of Elections printed the ballots, because they felt their appeal would not win. There have been lawsuits filed against the primary election, and more should come since candidates may have been denied votes because names of people who should not have been on the ballot were there. The Bronx is a Voter's Rights Borough, and it is possible that the federal government could step in for a new primary in the Bronx or just some assembly districts.