When New York state lawmakers passed early voting legislation in January of this year, the moment was heralded as a triumph by election reform advocates who long bemoaned the state’s restrictive voting laws. Now New York is among 39 states and the District of Columbia to have some form of the policy.
But as the city lurches towards the October 26th start date, education leaders are raising concerns about why they weren’t consulted sooner about their facilities being used for 11 days—the time it takes to set up and run early voting ahead of Election Day. The New York City Board of Elections needs access to schools starting on October 25th, and then will operate early voting at these sites through Sunday, November 3.
Last Friday, as voting rights advocates and local representatives gathered outside a school in downtown Brooklyn that will be used for early voting, principal Kiri Soares stopped to see what was happening. Soares said this was her first notification that her school would be an early voting site.
“As a citizen of New York City, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as early voting—which I’m excited about,” Soares said. “As a principal, it poses a lot of logistical problems that I gotta go figure out right now.”
Soares is the principal of the Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women, a middle and high school near Borough Hall. While the Institute itself isn’t an early voting site, it’s co-located inside the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice, a law-themed public high school, which is one of the sites.
“I can’t not have kids [in the gym] for a week in October. That’s crazy,” Soares told Gothamist / WNYC.
The Department of Education said it notified principals last Saturday if their school was on the list of facilities being used for early voting, following the same protocol it’s used for previous elections. The current list of 61 early voting sites includes 33 public schools.
“We traditionally notify schools if they’re a voting site a few weeks before an Election Day, and this year is no different—we notified principals on Saturday, 3 weeks before early voting starts,” said Will Mantell, a spokesman for the Department of Education. He said the DOE received the final list of 33 school sites in September.
Outside the Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in Brooklyn
Since March, officials have been going back and forth over the list of sites, according to a response to a Freedom of Information Law request submitted by WNYC. Initially, the city’s Board of Elections proposed a total of 38 sites. The mayor’s Chief Democracy Officer countered, sending a letter to the city Board with a list of 222 possible locations that could be used for early voting including 168 schools. That letter was sent just over a week before Mayor Bill de Blasio launched his presidential campaign.
While the mayor spent much of the summer traveling to early primary states, back home in the city, Board of Elections and Department of Education officials continued work on early voting sites. But the head of the union for school principals said its members were never consulted or brought into the planning process.
“There should have been conversations with the principal or school administration,” said Mark Cannizzaro, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. “With the idea of trying to make it work for both parties.” Cannizzaro thinks the Board of Elections should avoid using schools as early voting sites altogether.
Cannizarro added that when schools lose their cafeterias, students may be offered boxed lunches to eat in other locations at the school. When gyms are used, it means physical education classes can’t take place in those spaces.
Asked about the city’s prep for early voting at during a press conference on the monthly crime statistics Tuesday, de Blasio took aim once again at the city Board of Elections, accusing the agency of “skimping” on the number of sites and framing the upcoming election as practice for higher turnout contests in 2020.
“This year is just a warm-up,” said de Blasio, “next year is going to be possibly the highest turnout we will see in our lifetime and I’m very concerned that the 61 may not be enough.”
A proponent of early voting, the mayor said this policy change warranted beefed-up outreach and communication. But when asked whether his Department of Education should have notified principals sooner, he downplayed the issue.
“I will check in with the Chancellor,” said de Blasio, “but I think a month to get ready is a decent amount of time and we’ll do our best to work with it.”
