Pols Criticize BOE For Giving Queens Just 7 Early Vote Sites

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — Officials are lambasting the NYC Board of Elections for putting just seven early voting locations in Queens, the state's second-most-populous county.

State Sen. Michael Gianaris on Friday called for more early voting sites in Queens, criticizing the agency for doing the minimum required by the law he and other state legislators passed earlier this year.

Gianaris, who represents western Queens, released his letter to BOE Executive Director Michael Ryan at a news conference in front of LaGuardia Community College. The Long Island City college is the only early voting site in all of western Queens, according to a citywide map compiled by Gothamist.

"As you know, the enacted law envisions one poll site for every 50,000 voters while establishing a minimum of 7 poll sites per county," Gianaris wrote in the letter.

"Unfortunately the New York City Board of Elections submitted the minimum necessary for legal compliance, in the process setting the stage for failure of the early voting process by only having one site for every 337,000 Queens residents."

Queens has a population of about 2.3 million, according to census estimates, and has the largest geographic area of the five boroughs.

"We welcome the suggestions of Senator Gianaris and will present them to the Commissioners of the Board of Elections in the City of New York at our next meeting," Ryan said in a statement.

The BOE on Tuesday approved 38 voting sites citywide, including seven in Queens.

The list prompted a harsh rebuke from Mayor Bill de Blasio, who tweeted about the Queens sites: "That's like having seven sites for the entire state of New Mexico."

The board will assign voters to specific early-voting locations, according to Gothamist, rather than permitting voters to choose the site that's most convenient for them.

"The Board of Elections (BOE) is doing the bare minimum to implement early voting, especially in Queens where there are more voters assigned to each polling site than any other borough," said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York. "This is not only inexcusable, but likely a violation of state law."

The state legislature passed early voting in January, along with a suite of other electoral reforms. The bill sets up a nine-day period during which voters may cast ballots before Election Day.

The city is giving the elections board $75 million to create the early voting system ahead of elections this November, the Queens Daily Eagle reported.

De Blasio is calling for the BOE to expand the number of early voting locations by May 29, the state's deadline for determining how much grant money each county gets as a reimbursement for early-voting costs.