NEW YORK: Officials in New York, New Jersey and other states hit hard by the powerful storm Sandy are anxiously waiting to see when power will be restored in darkened areas and whether polling sites may need to be moved for next Tuesday’s presidential election.
“We’re open for business November 6. That will be Election Day,” said John Conklin, spokesman for the New York state Board of Elections. “We’re doing everything we can to make sure that everyone who goes to the polls will have a poll site to go to.”
That is the big question — where the voters will go to cast their ballots, particularly in parts of New York City and New Jersey that remain crippled from Sandy, which ravaged parts of the northeastern United States tomorrow night.
Much of the lower half of Manhattan is still without power. Nearby areas, including the New York City borough of Staten Island, the New Jersey shore and the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, are struggling to recover from flooding and storm-related damage.
Conklin said the local election boards in the areas hit hardest by the storm are assessing all their polling sites to decide which ones will be up and running by Tuesday’s election.
Power companies have been asked to prioritise getting electricity back to election sites after first restoring power to crucial places like hospitals.
Election officials in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are evaluating polling sites to see if the buildings are safe and if they are accessible to the public as well as to the election boards that must deliver voting machines.
Voting in New York and Connecticut could take place without electricity if necessary. They both use “optical scan” ballots that are filled out by hand and then scanned through a machine to get counted, election officials said.
The scanning machines can operate on battery power. If that runs out, the ballots could be placed in a locked box and at the end of the voting day could be transported to a site with electricity and run through the scanner to be counted, officials said.
Inaccessible polling sites may need to be consolidated or moved to other nearby locations. In some areas, like in the New York City borough of Queens where fire destroyed many buildings, a tent may need to be set up as a temporary voting location, Conklin said.
Conklin said polling sites may not be open in every voting precinct but will be open in as many as possible. “If you have to move a site, you don’t want to move it too far because you don’t want to disenfranchise people,” Conklin said.
William Biamonte, the Democratic commissioner for the Nassau County Board of Elections on New York’s Long Island, said he is worried about equipment, poll workers and votes.
“I think it’s going to affect voter turnout no matter,” Biamonte said. “Peoples’ homes were destroyed.”
Of the county’s 375 polling sites, less than half are ready to go, Biamonte said, and others are either without power, operating on generators or have not been in contact.
Reuters
