New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is demanding an explanation from the city board of elections after the purge of registered Democrats has doubled from 63,000 to 126,000.
As US Uncut previously reported, Kings County, where Brooklyn is located, has seen a 7 percent drop in the number of registered Democratic voters between November 2015 and April 2016. But a new investigation by WNYC has revealed that the New York City Board of Elections actually purged 126,000 voters in that time period — a 14 percent drop in 5 months. Now, Mayor de Blasio is demanding to know why there was such a precipitous drop in registered voters just before the primary.
Kings County was just one of seven out of 63 counties where the number of registered Democrats fell, while registration increased in all other 56 counties. This is particularly odd, since Brooklyn — the home of Bernie Sanders, as well as the home of Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters — is a hotbed of political activity.
The New York City Board of Elections claims the number is explained by 12,000 voters moving out of the borough, 44,000 voters moved from “active” to “inactive” voter lists (by having not voted in 4 years or more), and 70,000 voters being taken off the “inactive” list. Michael Ryan, executive director of the city Board of Elections, said the reason Kings County has such a dramatic drop in the number of registered voters is due to election officials in Brooklyn being six months to a year behind updating voter rolls, due to elections.
“When there is an election event, work stops getting done,” Ryan told WNYC.
0 comments:
Post a Comment