New Ballots Sent To 99K Brooklynites After Printing Error: BOE

BROOKLYN, NY — Nearly 100,000 voters in Brooklyn who received absentee ballots with the wrong envelope should be getting a new ballot packet with a letter explaining the blunder this week, according to the New York City Board of Elections.

"Ultimately, the resolution was that we resent over 99,000 Brooklyn voters an entirely new ballot packet," BOE Executive Director Michael Ryan said at a meeting Tuesday. "They should be getting them within the next few days."

The Board of Elections started processing the new ballot packets at the end of last week, a few days after news first broke that voters across the borough had received ballots with the wrong names and addresses on the return envelopes.

That processing was slated to be done by the end of the day Tuesday, Ryan said.

The BOE — who blamed a vendor hired to print mail-in ballots for the error — had warned voters who had received the wrong envelope not to send in their ballots until they receive the corrected packed, which will include a letter of explanation.

"They will get a letter explaining the issue and providing the appropriate direction to the voter," Ryan said, adding that notice of the issue also went out by email, robo-call, Link NYC messages and social media.

The envelope blunder was one of two issues with New York City absentee ballots as the board struggled to kick off what will likely be a historic scale of mail-in voting for the November 3 elections.

A number of ballots had also been marked with"Official Absentee Military Ballot" instead of "Official Absentee / Military Ballot," leading voters to believe they had received a ballot designated for only military personnel. Those voters were instructed to fill out their ballot as is.

As of Tuesday, the BOE had processed more than 658,000 absentee ballot applications across the five boroughs, Ryan said. About 2,700 applications, which are processed on a rolling basis, were still in the queue.

"That means 99 percent of all applications received to date were processed and sent out after mailing," he said.

Ryan also gave an update on poll sites in coronavirus "hotspots," which faced business and school shutdowns this week. There are 79 Election Day sites and five early voting sites within the zones, he said.

"We’re working together to ensure that the voting would not be interrupted," Ryan said. "While this is certainly a cause for concern, it is the same situation we found ourselves in in June."

The deadline to register to vote in New York is Oct. 9. Find out more on the BOE website here.