Christina Das and John Wasserman collecting petition signatures in March (Wasserman's Facebook)

Two Brooklyn candidates say their names were removed from the June ballot for party positions in retaliation for pushing back against local Democratic officials asking them to canvass during the pandemic as one of them experienced coronavirus-like symptoms.   

John Wasserman and Christina Das — who were running for reelection as 42nd Assembly District Alternative Judicial Delegate and Judicial Delegate, respectively — believe they were kicked off the ballot by the Brooklyn Democratic Party after they pushed back against the signature total demands made by District Leader Josue “Josh” Pierre.  

"I told Josh I was sick. I told Josh that I have coronavirus symptoms and was unable to collect any petition at that point in time,” said Wasserman, former president of Brooklyn Young Democrats.

“[Josh] told me, ‘Look, if you don’t collect 250 signatures, I’m going to disassociate from you,’” Wasserman recalled of his conversation with Pierre, a City Council candidate who is a cousin of, and co-district leader with, Brooklyn Democratic Party leader Rodneyse Bichotte, who represents central Brooklyn’s District 42 in the State Assembly. 

Despite an executive order from Governor Andrew Cuomo on March 14 that lowered the petition threshold, Pierre told them on March 15 that “she,” referring to Bichotte, still wanted 250 signatures from them, according to a text from Pierre.

Pierre did not respond to several requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Brooklyn Democratic Party, which Bichotte was elected to lead in January, declined to comment.

Wasserman, 27, said that on March 5 he came down with possible COVID-19 symptoms, including coughing and fatigue, which prompted him to stop petitioning out of concern for his health and that of others. He went to the doctor on March 10, when he took a flu test that came back negative, so he decided it was best to practice social distancing, he said.

Wasserman told Pierre about his symptoms and Pierre — who is running in the 2021 election to represent the 40th City Council District, which includes Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Flatbush, and part of Midwood — asked about his signature count, according to text messages between the two.

Two days later, on March 13, Pierre encouraged Wasserman and Das, a 28-year-old CUNY law student and the current Brooklyn Young Democrats president, to go out to canvass that weekend.

The pair, who live together in Flatbush, say they obliged, and went to Newkirk Plaza to ask voters for signatures for ballot petitions including their names as well as those of other local candidates. They fell significantly short of the 250 signatures Pierre demanded, they said. That weekend, Wasserman collected 13 signatures and Das gathered 18 of them for the slate, they said. 

Wasserman called and texted Pierre several times to express his concerns about petitioning during a pandemic — and while potentially being a vector for the virus — but received no response. Pierre repeatedly asked Wasserman and Das for updates on their signature count.

"You and Rodneyse want us to collect signatures during a national health crisis, that's concerning," he texted Pierre on Sunday March 15. 

That day, Wasserman’s and Das’ petitions were delivered to the Board of Elections by Pierre, according to Wasserman. 

Just over a month later, Wasserman received a letter, dated April 15, from the Board of Elections informing him that his judicial delegate candidacy had been terminated because he did not file a cover sheet with his petitions. Das later found out via the city ledger that her judicial delegate candidacy had also been terminated for the same reason. Das did not receive a letter, she said. (Both will appear on the June ballot to retain their county committee posts.)

"We collected petition signatures, and [Pierre] filed our petition signatures without a cover sheet, kicking us off the ballot," Wasserman said. 

After his efforts to obtain it from Pierre were unsuccessful, Wasserman contacted the Board of Elections on April 18, he said, requesting a copy of the ballot petition cover sheet that was supposed to have included his name, along with fellow Democrats who had agreed to petition together for ballot spots. He said he received it via e-mail on April 20.

The sheet, reviewed by Gotham Gazette, showed Wasserman’s and Das’ names covered with what appears to be whiteout, while every other candidate’s name remained legible on the sheet.

On April 20, when Wasserman received the cover sheet after contacting the BOE on Saturday because his efforts to get the from Pierre were unsuccessful, he found that his and Das’ names had been covered with what appears to be whiteout. Every other candidate's name remained on the cover sheet.

Wasserman and Das believe it was a coordinated attack on their candidacy that was hatched by party officials, not a clerical error, because they were the only candidates from their petitions who were booted from the June ballot.  

"There's really no way that this was incompetence," Das said. "Every single other member of the 42nd [Assembly District] are all filed with cover sheets other than two individuals who spoke out about petitioning during a pandemic."

The move was a deliberate act of retaliation, according to a Brooklyn elections lawyer, who said he had never seen a similar maneuver in his 40 years working in the borough’s politics. 

“Is it an illegal practice? I don’t think so. Is it an immoral practice? Well, that’s between those involved and their maker,” said Howard Graubard, the lawyer, who is familiar with the situation but isn’t involved in it in an official capacity. “Is it unseemly? Damn right it is.” 

“To go through the trouble of doing that is just astonishing,” he added. “It’s extraordinarily silly.”

The sheet, which prominently displays Bichotte’s name twice and Pierre’s once, is signed by attorney Jonathan Harkavy.

While Wasserman and Das on Wednesday challenged the ruling at a video hearing held by the Board of Elections, the termination was upheld, and both candidates remain off the ballot. According to Wasserman, their only mode of recourse is now State Supreme Court — an avenue they are considering. Several other candidates kicked off the ballot are also considering a suit.  

“Leading up to a really monumental election, this can’t be how youth leadership and young people are treated,” Das said in an interview. “We should be uplifted and have a transparent, open process for all constituents.” 

“This is not how district leaders and our county representatives should be treating constituents.” 

Asked why he continued to canvass while he could have been a vector of the potentially deadly coronavirus, Wassermann said he “felt pressure from [Pierre].” 

“We didn’t go door-to-door, and that’s probably why we got less signatures,” said Das. “I made sure to get gloves and masks. I wasn’t exhibiting any symptoms.”

“We felt pressured to go out,” she said. 

After under two hours of canvassing on Saturday March 14, the two realized they couldn’t successfully or safely petition, they said, so they stopped.

Both candidates said they have heard from two other judicial delegate candidates who got on the ballot without collecting any signatures. They also heard from other candidates that they had not been asked to provide 250 signatures, meaning to them the number Pierre asked for was an arbitrary one. 

Das and Wasserman are among a number of young candidates who have run into challenges of their candidacy amid the pandemic, which has thrown the petitioning process into disarray. Despite pressure from progressives and other Brooklyn lawmakers, Bichotte has refused to halt petition challenges filed by the party she leads. 

"Candidates who failed to meet the lowered threshold should not take advantage of this health emergency to force their candidacy on the community," she wrote in a Daily News op-ed published on April 8. 

Among the booted candidates are Sandy Nurse, a progressive running in the open City Council special election to replace Rafael Espinal in District 37, and all others in the race but the one candidate with the Party's backing. Nurse had been coalescing support among a number of groups and officials to take on the Brooklyn Democratic Party’s chosen candidate, Darma Diaz, and, like Wasserman and Das, says she is considering going to court to secure her spot on the June ballot.

Note: this story has been corrected to remove erroneous mention of Samy Nemir-Olivares being kicked off the ballot and to clarify which positions Wasserman and Das were seeking.

All voters will get an absentee application for the June elections (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)

Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday, April 24 signed an executive order mandating that the State Board of Elections send every registered voter in the state an absentee ballot application with paid postage to facilitate voting in elections slated for June 23 without increasing the risk of exposure to the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

The June election, with an early voting period preceding it, will feature party primaries for congressional, state legislative, and local races, after several elections on New York’s calendar were delayed because of the coronavirus outbreak. The executive order also cancelled special elections for the state Assembly, state Senate, and Queens Borough President that were slated to take place that day -- but the primaries for all those races will still happen.

On Monday, April 27, the state Board of Elections also cancelled the Democratic presidential primary since all the candidates have conceded to former Vice President Joe Biden. The Republican presidential primary had already been cancelled in February. The power to cancel the Democratic primary had been granted to the Democratic BOE representatives by new language inserted into a state budget bill by the governor and legislators and passed in early April with the rest of the budget.

There is no guarantee that the risk of exposure to the coronavirus will be eliminated by June, which has prompted steps by the governor to ensure that New Yorkers can still participate in the democratic process. “We've seen elections held where we have people on lines for a long period of time. It makes no sense to me to tell people, ‘You have to put your life at risk, violate social distancing to come out to vote,’” Cuomo said at this daily coronavirus briefing in Albany on Friday, just under two months from the June election day. 

The governor has already signed an executive order allowing all voters to request an absentee ballot for the June primary based on the risk of contracting the coronavirus. But that still requires voters to obtain a ballot application from the BOE, return it, receive the absentee ballot, and return that too.

Some local county boards of elections have begun to move to online applications. The New York City BOE launched an online portal for city residents and is also accepting applications by email, fax or phone. But concerns were raised by legislators and election reform advocates that the measure was insufficient, particularly if voters don’t have access to the internet or printers at home, and obtaining a physical application from the relevant board would be unfeasible as people shelter at home. 

The new order would mandate that applications are sent to registered voters, but not a ballot itself, which would have been unconstitutional, said Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor, at the briefing. “I know some people thought that this should be, ‘You send everybody an actual ballot to vote,’ and we don't think that that's within our constitutional right, for the governor's directive powers to override the constitution and create a mail-in voting system where one otherwise doesn't exist,” she said. 

Advocates like those at Common Cause NY were also concerned that a vote-by-mail program alone could be riddled with problems if implemented on such a quick timeline – the BOE could fail to mail ballots to 970,000 ‘inactive’ voters who are registered with political parties; mailed ballots wouldn’t provide accommodations for the visually impaired or those with limited English proficiency; residents sheltering out of state may never receive a ballot. But the governor’s order should allay those fears, since in-person voting will still continue and all voters, active and inactive, will receive a ballot application, according to the executive order. “We're saying you have both options. You can go to the poll or you can vote absentee,” Cuomo said. 

Asked by reporters about any possible opposition to his order, Cuomo said, “If you’re against absentees, then everybody goes to the polls. Is that what they want?” 

Prior to the governor’s announcement, State Republican Party Chair Nick Langworthy had expressed several criticisms of a possible vote-by-mail program for the entire state, worrying without evidence that it could lead to voting fraud. He had promised to sue the governor if he should mandate that ballots are mailed to voters, calling such a move “an illegal and unconstitutional political power grab that will severely undermine the integrity of our elections.” 

But Langworthy supports the new order, and will not file any legal challenges, according to a spokesperson. “New York is the global epicenter of this public health crisis, which creates the obvious need to change some of our normal course of business, including political campaigns and voting,” Langoworthy said in a statement, agreeing that the state should act to protect both voters and poll workers. “While I strongly prefer that people vote in person, on Election Day, temporarily suspending the normal procedures for absentee ballots during this crisis is a practical necessity.”

Good government group Citizens Union applauded the governor's move in a statement on Friday afternoon. "This action will go a long way to ensure that this coming June, New Yorkers aren’t asked to choose between their health and their vote," Executive Director Betsy Gotbaum said. “Ensuring that our 2020 elections can proceed without putting the public’s health at risk will require resources, creativity and flexibility. Today’s announcement is an important step.”

The early voting period for the primary is from June 13 to June 21. Early voting sites have not been confirmed and, by law, must be made public 45 days before the election.

Note - this article has been updated with information from Governor Cuomo's executive order.

Note - this article has been updated to note that the Democratic presidential primary was cancelled. 

Note- this article has been updated with information on the NYC BOE's new online portal for an absentee ballot application.

Kingsboro Psychiatric Center (photo: New York State Office of Mental Health)

The death toll from the novel coronavirus at state psychiatric facilities is rising, according to what scant official figures are available, hinting at a nightmare unfolding inside some of New York's least visible institutions. In just over a week, the number of residents confirmed to have died from the virus has tripled, according to data provided by the state Office of Mental Health (OMH), which runs the 23 centers.

Thirty residents are dead and another seven are suspected to have died from COVID-19, out of roughly 3,500 patients living in state-run inpatient psychiatric facilities. Another 259 current residents, many of whom are there involuntarily after being diagnosed with a severe mental illness, have tested positive for the coronavirus as of Wednesday, April 22. An OMH spokesperson said the agency is in the process of updating the number of employees who have tested positive. On April 17, officials reported 283 out of about 14,400 staff members had contracted the virus.

Citing privacy laws, OMH would not report on staff deaths or even comment on a tip that an employee at Manhattan Psychiatric Center had died of the virus. The agency has also denied requests for a breakdown of positive cases and deaths by facility, county, or region.

This snapshot of the virus' wreckage, now common in other contexts, has only begun to surface 55 days after Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency in New York, and only after inquiries. Asked by Gotham Gazette, OMH acknowledged 10 resident deaths at its facilities on April 14. For more than a week after, OMH did not provide updated numbers on its facilities until Thursday, April 23, when the 37 confirmed and suspected coronavirus-related deaths were reported.

People with knowledge of the facilities say the pace at which officials are releasing information and the amount left undisclosed is part of a pattern of obscurity that is able to flourish around a population with few people advocating for it on the outside. It may also suggest an agency without a firm grasp on conditions in its facilities, where the virus is claiming many lives.

Gotham Gazette had identified close to 20 resident deaths in just two psychiatric facilities in downstate counties, when OMH was still reporting just ten. An OMH spokesperson wrote in an email Thursday that the initial ten referred only to confirmed cases.

Meanwhile, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths statewide, and in other congregate living sites like nursing homes, ticks up by hundreds each day.

"OMH said that there were ten deaths in all 24 facilities?" asked an employee with direct patient contact at Rockland Psychiatric Center in an interview Wednesday. "No. It's more like ten deaths per facility."

"They are officially acknowledging at least 9 deaths at my facility. I think we are currently up to ten or eleven," the employee told Gotham Gazette.

Members from the Public Employees Federation, a union representing thousands of employees working in the state-run psychiatric centers, have reported to union leadership that at least seven residents at Pilgrim Psychiatric Center on Long Island have died from COVID-19. A patient advocate who works with residents at Pilgrim said they were aware of nine patients who have died there since the outbreak began. (The New York Times reported Friday that the state had confirmed that 10 patients at Rockland and nine patients at Pilgrim have died.)

Everyone who spoke with Gotham Gazette for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal from OMH or for the protection of their clients.

"I think Manhattan Psychiatric also [has] about nine or ten" residents who have died, said the Rockland employee. That information came to them through an informal grapevine of doctors, nurses, and other direct care workers who have become increasingly concerned about the conditions in facilities and the silence surrounding them.

"We talk to each other," the Rockland employee said. "The administration does not communicate that information."

OMH inpatient facilities have been among the hardest hit but most under-discussed congregate living settings in New York. Throughout the months of March and April, patients have continued to gather in close quarters and employees have struggled to get sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE), as Gotham Gazette first reported, creating a fertile environment for spreading the virus. Reports from various service-providers say patients, also lacking PPE, do not have the resources to maintain sanitary conditions and many do not apprehend social distancing and hygiene guidelines.

Patients in New York's psychiatric institutions suffer from severe mental illness like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Most residents are admitted through the criminal justice system and are held involuntarily. Many have underlying medical issues that exacerbate the risk of dying from COVID-19.

According to union officials, in the last week of March OMH leadership told labor unions they were still in the process of assessing how much PPE was available at each facility. The Rockland Psychiatric Center employee told Gotham Gazette it wasn't until the second week of April that staff with direct patient contact began receiving one N95 mask per week. Multiple accounts from union leaders and psychiatric staff suggest employees were not allowed to wear certain PPE, even if it was available, until April. Only last Friday, April 17, did employees at Rockland Psychiatric who worked with patients start getting one N95 mask, one surgical mask, and one gown per day.

With the supply of PPE low statewide, the new arrangement is as much as workers feel they can hope for. "This is the first week where we feel we are adequately staffed and have adequate PPE," said the Rockland employee. "But we've had many, many patients get sick, many, many staff get sick in that time."

As in the general population, the distribution of coronavirus cases and deaths at psychiatric centers is not even across New York. While downstate institutions like Rockland, Pilgrim, and Manhattan have many positive cases and deaths, upstate centers have not been hit as hard. Some upstate facilities have had few if any positive cases -- Rochester Psychiatric Center, for example, has not had any positive cases as of Sunday, according to an employee there.

Other facilities have been ravaged. Mid Hudson Psychiatric Center, in Marcy, New York, is one of the biggest and most notorious psychiatric institutions in the state. With a high number of so-called forensic patients -- residents who have come in involuntarily through the criminal legal system -- the facility is already prone to violence and chaos. Since the outbreak began, at least 89 employees there have called out sick, according to a Public Employee Federation leader.

At Rockland Psychiatric, only three units out of 14 are without COVID-19 positive patients, according to an internal report from union leadership that was reviewed by Gotham Gazette. Forty union members have tested positive there and at least one staff member, a mental health therapy aide, has died, the report says. At Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Brooklyn, staff members exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms could not take paid sick leave unless they tested positive, even if they had a note from a doctor, per emails among employees shared with Gotham Gazette.

OMH has not released information on how many facility-based workers have died of the novel coronavirus, despite numerous requests for that information from Gotham Gazette. In the most recent response, on Friday April 24, OMH Director of Public Information, James Plastiras, wrote: "Suspected COVID-19 related employee death totals at the facilities do not meet the data privacy reporting threshold." In response to a tip that an employee at Manhattan Psychiatric Center had died after contracting the coronavirus, Plastiras last week wrote, “OMH is prohibited by State and Federal privacy laws from providing protected health information.”

But an OMH employee newsletter sent in the beginning of April and obtained by Gotham Gazette includes the names and biographies of four "heroes," workers at OMH psychiatric facilities "who were lost to us during the epidemic." The employees -- a secure care treatment aide at Rockland Psychiatric; a security officer at Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center; and two mental health therapy aides, one at Kingsboro Psychiatric Center and one at Manhattan Psychiatric -- had a collective 86 years of service, according to the newsletter.

Plastiras said OMH had gotten permission from the employees' families to publish the information, and that the newsletter was only meant to be seen by OMH staff, not the general public.

Cuomo has faced intense pressure from members of the media to provide detailed information on testing, positive cases, and deaths in nursing homes, where residents live closely to one another and are already highly susceptible to the virus because of their age and underlying conditions. In response to scrutiny about incomplete information on where nursing home deaths have taken place and other details, Cuomo has repeatedly said the state can only report to the public what nursing homes, most of which are privately run, report to the state Department of Health. But the Office of Mental Health runs the state's 23 public psychiatric institutions directly and is not dependent on outside entities for information about its facilities.

OMH is not the only government agency restricting information about inpatient mental health facilities, and their patients and staff. Gotham Gazette has been seeking data from New York City Health + Hospitals, the city's public hospital system, about the number of patients transferred since the start of the coronavirus outbreak from city hospitals to OMH inpatient centers.

A Health + Hospitals spokesperson did confirm to Gotham Gazette that psychiatric patients that could not be discharged from hospitals were transferred to state institutions as part of the city's effort to free up hospital beds for COVID-19 patients.

"We have not disclosed the number of inpatients psychiatric transfers to State facilities," the spokesperson wrote in an email. The spokesperson did not directly respond to questions about why they are not publishing the figures, writing, "We haven't shared this data publicly. We'll let you know when it's available."

Voting in New York is undergoing major shifts, with more possibly to come (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Amid reports that Governor Andrew Cuomo plans to allow or require voting by mail for all New Yorkers in primary and special elections set for June 23, government reform advocates have raised concerns that the measure could end up adversely affecting the election, while the State Republican Party has promised to sue if the governor follows through.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced several delays in the state’s election calendar and in-person voting may continue to be a risky endeavor in June when the state holds primaries for all the seats in the state legislature and House of Representatives, and possibly for the Democratic presidential nomination, as well as a handful of special elections. In lieu of that, according to a NY1 report on Monday that the governor’s office refuses to confirm or deny, Cuomo is expected to sign an executive order mandating that local Boards of Elections mail out ballots to all registered voters.

Such a measure by the governor would, in theory, help New Yorkers avoid the risk of exposure to the coronavirus while still exercising their right to vote. But with no details yet about the executive order, government reform advocates are anxious that the order could do more harm than good. Asked about the NY1 report, Cuomo spokesperson Caitlin Girouard said only, “We're looking at all options​.”

Cuomo had previously issued an order expanding absentee voting to all who decided to request such a ballot over fears of the virus and in-person voting.

Among the concerns from advocates about the possibility of full-on vote-by-mail are that the local BOEs may only mail ballots to active voters registered with political parties in the state, and miss the more than 970,000 ‘inactive’ voters who are nonetheless registered to vote with party affiliation. (In total, counting voters with no party affiliation, there are 11.7 million active and 1.2 million inactive voters in New York.) Mailed ballots would not make special accomodations for the visually impaired or be an effective substitute for translation services at poll sites. The ballots may also fail to reach the mass of New York residents who have chosen to shelter outside the state or populations like college students who are now living at home.

“We would love to be able to move to a vote-by-mail system in New York, but there are very significant obstacles to a wholesale transition,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, in a virtual news conference on Wednesday afternoon, insisting the the state should only take the step if it’s done in conjunction with in-person voting. “Unfortunately, jumping to an entire vote-by-mail system in New York state would be setting up our elections for failure.”

A majority of Americans, 58% in fact, support voting by mail, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday amid ongoing questions about what form this year’s presidential and other elections will take. But Lerner pointed out that effective vote-by-mail programs, like the ones used in Washington and Colorado, depend on accurate voter rolls, and that elections administrators in New York have been notoriously bad at maintaining their records. The most high profile example of that is the New York City Board of Elections, which illegally kicked 200,000 Democratic voters off its rolls ahead of the April 2016 presidential primary. Voters are often also improperly placed on inactive status, and the BOE may not send a ballot to those voters, who’ve been labeled ‘inactive’ after they fail to respond to a mailer from the BOE requesting confirmation of their current place of residence.

“If New York hastily Institutes a vote-by-mail system, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and the inactive, over 1 million voters, may never receive a ballot,” Lerner said, calling for an expansion of absentee ballots and doubling the number of early voting days from 9 to 18. The early voting period extends from June 13 to June 21. The city Board of Elections has yet to confirm early voting sites, which it is required to make public 45 days before the election, and there is no information on its website.

The solution is one that the governor has already undertaken, Lerner argued. On April 9, Cuomo signed an executive order that expanded the criteria for requesting an absentee ballot. Voters who are either ill from coronavirus or fear contracting it at the polls can now apply for an absentee ballot.

The New York City Board of Elections is also getting ready to allow voters to for the first time apply for absentee ballots online, according to spokesperson Valerie Vazquez. “The Board is in the final stages of releasing not only an email address to allow voters to send in their application but also an inclusive, user friendly portal that will allow voters to submit their application electronically,” she said in a text message on Monday.

In the news conference led by Common Cause NY, Monica Bartley, community outreach organizer at The Center for Independence of the Disabled New York, pointed out that mailed ballots won’t be available in braille or large print, disenfranchising the visually-impaired. “It would be necessary for the state to provide accessible options for people with disabilities so that we can all vote and not be left out of the process,” she said.

Amy Torres, director of policy and advocacy at the Chinese-American Planning Council, warned against the “false choice between the health of voters and the health of our democracy.” She noted that immigrants with limited English proficiency could be accidentally disenfranchised, and called for “doubling down on the successful reforms like early voting, and expanding options like vote by mail so that our democracy is not only healthy during this time of crisis, but is stronger in the years ahead.”

Just as with immigrants, African-Americans could be particularly impacted in a full vote-by-mail system, said Lurie Favors, general counsel at the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, CUNY. African-American communities have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, she pointed out, and would be hard-pressed to mobilize and educate voters about the changes to the election.

There were also operational concerns. A mail voting system would require the BOE to print and send out millions of pieces of mail, a herculean task for an agency often criticized for its inefficiency and that advocates say is underfunded for its mandate.

Mostly, the experts had questions that have yet to be answered by the governor’s office, but they broadly agreed that it’s too soon to implement voting by mail for the June primary. “Right now, in the middle of the pandemic, New Yorkers do not need to be experimenting with a complete overhaul of their elections against the advice of all experts,” Lerner said.

Torres added, “If advocates are left in the dark on this, it means that even more voters are left in the dark as well.”

The June 23 election day is now just under two months away, with early voting set to kick off even sooner.

The New York Republican Party also shared some of the aforementioned concerns about a potential vote-by-mail program this week, but also worried that it could lead to fraudulent voting, though there is little evidence of that from other states. Nick Langworthy, chair of the New York GOP, said in a statement that such an executive order would be “an illegal and unconstitutional political power grab that will severely undermine the integrity of our elections.”

“Throughout this pandemic, I have worked in good faith with the Governor to make necessary adjustments to our electoral system to protect the safety of New Yorkers, but this executive action crosses a red line,” he added, responding to the NY1 report of Cuomo’s impending action that has still not materialized. “I have been willing to support a system that allows for all New Yorkers to use the threat of coronavirus to vote by absentee ballot, but automatically mailing ballots without proper security measures in place most certainly invites fraud.”

Though he referred to “numerous cases” of problems in a vote-by-mail system, he did not cite any specific examples. He also said he had spoken with elections commissioners across the state who oppose the measure and say it is impossible to conduct a vote-by-mail election, but he did not name them.

Among the issues he noted were ballots arriving late or going to the wrong address, more than one ballot being delivered and bins of ballots that were never delivered – which was apparently the case in the recent Wisconsin primaries where ballots were found after the election at a USPS processing center – and so-called “ballot harvesting'' where an individual collects absentee ballots from several people and delivers them. Collecting a ballot from a voter is not illegal in New York, where someone can be designated for the task by a voter. The only recent example of ballot harvesting fraud was in the 2018 midterms in North Carolina, where it is illegal, and involved a Republican operative who used the tactic to help a Republican congressional candidate.

Langworthy’s concerns echo those of Republicans across the country and even President Donald Trump, who has questioned efforts by several states to expand voting by mail and said it should not be considered for his reelection bid. “Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they're cheaters. They're fraudulent in many cases,” Trump said at a White House briefing after the primary election in Wisconsin, which was held with in-person voting despite the risks from the pandemic, though he did not cite evidence. In March, when Democrats were seeking funding to expand absentee and mail ballots in the federal stimulus package, Trump indicated vehement opposition to it based on politics, rather than principle. “The things they had in there were crazy,” he said in a Fox & Friends interview. “They had things — levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” Neither Trump nor Langworthy seemed to take note that members of the military have voted by mail since the Civil War.

Should Governor Cuomo actually sign an executive order to implement the program, Langworthy said his party would file suit. “The ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ mentality has permeated the Governor’s office and Cuomo is using this pandemic as a reason to expand his powers and force his political agenda through,” he said. “If he goes forward with this, we will be prepared to legally challenge it at every level.”

Gov. Cuomo and Lt. Gov. Hochul (photo: Darren McGee, Governor's Office)

As Governor Andrew Cuomo garnered national attention while leading briefings on New York’s response to the novel coronavirus outbreak each day for well over a month, often from Albany and sometimes from Manhattan, one top state official was conspicuously absent: Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul.

Not only was the lieutenant governor not present for any of the governor’s first 40-plus daily coronavirus briefings, she was curiously never mentioned as part of the Cuomo administration’s emergency efforts, even as the governor brought several former top members of his team back into the fold to help out.

Though in recent weeks Hochul has been busily making the rounds on radio and television, giving updates on behalf of the Cuomo administration, she had not joined the governor and his top aides and confidants at one of the now-famous COVID-19 briefings until Tuesday, when Cuomo held one in Buffalo, not far from where Hochul resides.

As Hochul, one of just four statewide elected officials, has explained during some of her frequent media appearances and in an email exchange with Gotham Gazette, she has been designated to monitor conditions upstate, representing the administration in parts of New York far less impacted by the pandemic, which has hit New York City and its suburbs particularly hard. Hochul has been all over the airwaves -- mostly upstate but also at times downstate -- providing updates and getting out the administration’s message, informing New Yorkers on state efforts to contain the outbreak, attempting to clear up misunderstandings and reassure New Yorkers.

On Tuesday from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Hochul was seated directly, though with several feet of distance, to Cuomo’s left, and the governor heaped praise on his lieutenant, whom he called “my partner in state government,” and explained that she was going to spearhead the planning to ‘reopen’ western New York, which will happen when public health officials believe it is appropriate and the governor gives the go-ahead.

“We'll ask her to take charge of western New York, monitor the public health issues, make sure if there's a problem in terms of public health, we're marshalling all the resources from across the state to help western New York and also to start to work on the reimagining and reopening plan for western New York,” Cuomo said of Hochul, while also putting his first-term lieutenant governor, Robert Duffy, now the CEO of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce, in charge of the same for the Finger Lakes region. Over the course of Cuomo's initial 25-minute briefing, neither Hochul nor anyone else seated on the dais with the governor had a speaking role; and there were no questions directed at the lieutenant governor in the 12 minutes of media Q-and-A that followed.

On Tuesday in Buffalo, Cuomo and Hochul were joined by, among others, Jim Malatras, Cuomo’s former director of state operations, who left the administration to become president of SUNY Empire State College, but has returned to work with Cuomo on the coronavirus crisis. Not there on Tuesday, but typically at Cuomo’s briefings have been Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa and Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker. Several other aides and advisors, such as Gareth Rhodes, have been among those taking on new responsibilities and deeply involved in the state coronavirus response, and at times Cuomo’s briefings. Typically, Cuomo is flanked by DeRosa, Malatras, and Zucker.

Last week, Gotham Gazette inquired about Hochul’s role in the Cuomo administration's response to the pandemic, which has taken a greater toll in New York than anywhere else in the country.

“I’m Upstate between Buffalo and Albany focused on coronavirus efforts and response in close coordination with Governor Cuomo and his team,” Hochul wrote by email. “As you know, the situation with the coronavirus continues to change day-by-day and transparency is a priority, so I’m focused on communicating the most accurate and complete information, whether it's keeping New Yorkers updated through local media interviews or offering mental health tips through newer social media avenues like Instagram Live. I’m regularly in touch with Commissioners, senior staff and have numerous daily briefing calls with emergency operations command centers, county executives and local elected officials throughout the day to keep communication channels open.”

Hochul, a Democrat who briefly represented her home Erie County district in Congress, joined Cuomo’s ticket for his initial reelection in 2014, then the duo won her second term and his third in 2018. The lieutenant governor’s portfolio has previously included economic development and a variety of other issues, including a child care task force she’s currently co-chairing.

As COVID-19 has been ravaging New York, largely downstate and in New York City especially, Hochul has been hunkered down at her upstate home, while Cuomo has lived out of the governor’s mansion in Albany, holding briefings at the Capitol building and other locations around the state, such as several at the Javits Center in Manhattan, which has been home to a pop-up hospital created largely by the federal government at Cuomo’s request. The governor has focused a great deal of attention on New York City, which has been the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States.

Amid her frequent recent appearances, on April 15 Hochul went on 98PXY radio and said New York City has been so hard hit by coronavirus in part because of reliance on public transportation and the density of the downstate area, and it was to be expected.

“Everybody’s on top of each other,” she said. “Everyone wants to be in New York City, a lot of people want to be in New York City, it's a fascinating and fabulous place to live but it’s also the most congested place in the country, and that’s really why the numbers are so much higher there. We’re not on top of each other, we’re not in high rises with a thousand other people, We’re not on public transportation to the degree they are in New York City, that’s one of the reasons why we’re not seeing the numbers upstate.”

Hochul’s uptick in media appearances, several dozen over the course of a few weeks, also coincided with controversy that erupted after Cuomo on April 3 announced plans to issue an executive order that would allow him to redirect medical resources, such as ventilators, to areas of the state that need them, at the governor’s discretion. In essence, this meant from upstate to downstate, and sparked concern and criticism from some in various places across upstate, including western New York.

Many of Hochul’s radio appearances have focused on clearing up the details of the order and ensuring residents of upstate areas that they are not being raided by the state to help New York City and left vulnerable to the outbreak.

“He simply said that he was looking at an executive order which would authorize him to be able to take an assessment of where all the ventilators are, the needs of the hospitals in those communities, and also be able to redeploy if necessary. So he was just simply reserving the right to do this,” Hochul said on WBFO NPR Morning Edition with Jay Moran, on April 6. “No ventilators have left western York despite people trying to politicize this issue and trying to scare people. There's fear-mongering going on and people putting out all this information that there's been 50 confiscated in the middle of the night. All of that is false.”

She likened the order to what would happen if a bad snowstorm were to hit upstate and snow plows are sent from the downstate region to help out.

“It reminds me of a snowstorm scenario where Buffalo gets smacked,” Hochul said on A New Morning with Susan Rose and Brian Mazurowski on WBEN on April 6. “We could shut down for days, even weeks, people stranded...and boy are we glad when those utility trucks show up from Long Island and Westchester and New York City and people bring generators and national guard flowing into our communities to help us. And you know what? They don't say we need to stay downstate cause the snow might come here. It's not snowing yet...they come and help. And the governor shows up and I show up and that's what we're talking about. When there's a need, we'll be there to help because there is no way that we'll leave western New York unprotected.”

The controversy subsided some when Cuomo’s order was less dramatic than some had feared or made it out to be, and when the COVID-19 numbers started to look better than projected downstate, with hospitalizations and intubations somewhat stabilizing.

“We’re monitoring the numbers literally by the hour and how many new cases, people testing positive, how many hospitalizations and certainly the number of people that have been discharged from the hospital as well,” Hochul said on WBZA’s The Morning Buzz on April 6. She went on to discuss coronavirus-related fatalities, stressing that “the vast majority of which were in New York City,” and noted some positive trends in terms of the number of deaths dropping, albeit still at a high number, and “reduction in hospitalizations and the number of people in ICU. And so those are trends that we’ve been desperately looking for. And we finally started to see them. Actually to call it a trend may be premature, if we could see this go out over the next few days and be very positive.”

Even with some positive signs, the numbers remain quite high, and Hochul has spent significant energy warning people to not let the relatively good news reduce their commitment to staying at home and social distancing.

“There's still a lot of lives being lost,” she said while noting some “progress” and stressing that “the governor says this is all driven by science and data. We can't predict anything. But what also could be a scenario is you hit a plateau where you stay at this rate of still losing those high numbers. Even if they don't start getting higher, that's still a high number. But that could continue for a number of days. We don't know when it would start dropping. We can keep this centrally located downstate and deal with it there and that's where the need is the greatest and prevent it from spiking up and those numbers upstate. But this is where social responsibility is what's going to protect us.”

Along with the public health crisis, an economic crisis has unfolded, with mass job loss and New Yorkers filing for unemployment insurance in huge numbers, facing problems with the state Department of Labor’s website and being able to reach a representative on the phone.

Hochul has spent significant portions of her time on the airwaves reassuring New Yorkers that the state was very aware of the problem and taking steps to fix it. She says the bulk of the problem is capacity of the system, which has all of a sudden been experiencing millions of calls a day.

“We've hired Google to redo our websites and make it easier. We have people working from other agencies, hired over a thousand new people [at Department of Labor]. So I know there's frustration, which the governor said it's not acceptable and we're going to get this right,” Hochul explained on News 12 Bronx and Brooklyn, in one of her handful of recent downstate appearances. “And I know it's been a long way and it's hard to be patient because we're all under tremendous stress. But in the end, at the end of it all, be aware that your benefits are going to be retroactive to the first day that you needed them, not the day that you connect with the state agency.”

Hochul described the efforts to modernize the website as an area they’ve been “prioritizing more than ever” because it’s how they “can directly help New York families.”

With Cuomo extending his “New York on PAUSE” order to mid-May, protests have begun cropping up, in Albany and in Buffalo (and other places around the country), with protestors calling for a reopening of the economy. When asked about the protests on Spectrum News Buffalo, Hochul said she and the governor want to reopen the economy as much as everyone else, but it has to be done carefully and on a timetable.

“This is an opportunity for us to be unified, to stand together as Americans who are all having to encounter a global pandemic together at the same time. This isn’t a time to be divisive and have political winds blowing here,” Hochul said.

As she continues to have a focus on the economy given her past portfolio and is now taking on more of a focus regarding the idea of a western New York “reopening,” Hochul said that she has begun talking with various chambers of commerce across the state as the administration develops plans.

Reopening has to be done in a “thoughtful and responsible way,” she said.

Cuomo has also recently announced a coordinating council among seven northeastern states — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island — to work together to come up with a regional plan to reopen the states, though he then said New York would start planning its own region-by-region framework within the state, tasking Hochul with the western New York region.

“The coordinating group - comprised of one health expert, one economic development expert and the respective Chief of Staff from each state -- will work together to develop a fully integrated regional framework to gradually lift the states' stay at home orders while minimizing the risk of increased spread of the virus,” a press release from Cuomo’s office said.

Though she is not one of the three New York members on the regional council, Hochul said she is also focused on the effort as the chair of the state’s Regional Economic Development Councils (REDC), a major Cuomo initiative that awards millions in local funding each year, and speaking with chambers across the State to add to the reopening plan for New York State.

“I'm already talking to our chambers and business leaders all across the state how we talked about a recovery ‘cause we're anxious to get that economy started again. But it's how long that's going to take and when that'll start all depends on whether or not people practice what we've been talking about,” Hochul said on WBEN. “Because every time you leave your house, you and your family and others are exposed to this and we're just asking for this level of sacrifice longer.”

According to Hochul and Cuomo, the key to reopening will be testing capacity.

“Testing is going to be key,” Cuomo said at his daily coronavirus briefing on April 13. “That's a new frontier for us, also. This state is probably the most aggressive state in the nation in actually getting the testing up. We test more than any other state. We test more than other countries. We test more than the other leading states combined in testing. But, that's still not enough. We have to do more.”

Two days later, Hochul was getting the message out. “A lot of it is going to be based on testing. If we could have broad based testing, we’ll know who already has this and those people, they would be able to get back to work and normal life. We want to start introducing those concepts and working with our neighboring states on a policy,” the lieutenant governor said on 98PXY on April 15.

Hochul told Gotham Gazette that opening would also require help from the federal government. Governor Cuomo “is also asking the federal government, in a bipartisan effort, for $500 billion in aid to states to help with our economic recovery,” Hochul said by email. “We need the federal government to step up and take action for the future of our economy. Much of the recovery will come with continued support for the Paycheck Protection Program, additional support for hospitals and healthcare. We will need significant investments to rebound from this unprecedented effort.”

Hochul said on 98PXY that by the time we develop a vaccination, that’s when we know for sure we can go back to normal life. So we don’t want to backslide before that and work to begin reopening the economy.

Hochul was set to make another eight public appearances on Wednesday, including six on radio or TV, one at The Ivy Network's Wise Women Zoom Conference and one at the North Country Chamber of Commerce town hall.

Ben Max contributed to this article.

Manhattan Psychiatric Center, Wards Island (photo: @nicknormal via Flickr)

Ten people have died of coronavirus and another 193 have tested positive among the nearly 3,500 residents living in state-run inpatient psychiatric facilities, according to officials, making them one of the hardest hit institutional settings per capita in New York State. Another 283 staff that work at the state's 23 centers have tested positive for COVID-19, which has killed well over 13,000 people across the state.

After inquiries, the information was provided to Gotham Gazette on April 14 by the state Office of Mental Health (OMH), which runs the 23 sites. On April 17, just before publication of this story, OMH said it did not have any new numbers to share.

The centers are home to people with the most severe mental illnesses, who cannot manage their symptoms alone, and are proving to be particularly fertile settings for the virus' spread. They are experiencing exacerbated risks, similar to other congregate settings like jails and nursing homes, which have thus far received virtually all the attention.

Testimony from psychiatric center staff, labor union leaders, and an elected official with oversight of the centers paints a picture of sites where patients continue to gather in groups and staff lack the personal protective supplies needed to limit exposure to the coronavirus, where even basic hygiene and space to quarantine positive cases is lacking. Experts are concerned that the potential for violence among residents, already high, is heightened as they respond to life under the austere conditions of a societal lockdown.

Officials at OMH say the agency has taken precautions to protect residents and staff from the virus, but frontline workers say they have seen few changes on the ground. Union officials representing the workers said they are considering legal action to protect their members.

"There is a degree of fear and uncertainty amongst our workforce as well as, I think, amongst the patients," said Randi DiAntonio, vice president of the Public Employees Federation (PEF), a union representing thousands of healthcare workers in inpatient facilities. "We want to provide the services but we want to be safe and we want the right equipment. We don't want to be going into places when it's not absolutely necessary and critical and we want to be heard."

OMH did not provide information on coronavirus deaths among its staff. In response to an inquiry about a tip that an employee at Manhattan Psychiatric Center had died of COVID-19, spokesperson James Plastiras did not deny the fatality, but wrote: “OMH is prohibited by State and Federal privacy laws from providing protected health information.”

When asked, OMH also did not provide a breakdown of the patient deaths and positive cases by facility or county.

Based on confirmed cases, the psychiatric center coronavirus figures represent an infection rate twice that of nursing homes, and a death rate four times greater than in New York City jails, two settings that have been the focus of significant public attention, as their populations live in crowded spaces, sometimes against their will, and are often more likely to be killed by the virus.

Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio have each, in the face of public pressure, supported to varying degrees reducing the populations in other congregate living sites and taking stricter precautions to protect the people living in them. Cuomo has faced intense pressure to release more prisoners using his powers of clemency.

But staff and union leaders have reported "business as usual" in psychiatric centers with group therapy sessions of up to 20 people and residents gathering at mealtime in a single large dining room. Health-care workers often see patients with no protective face coverings as they continue to provide support for dozens of residents in shifts of eight to twelve hours.

"In most of the facilities patients were sitting right on top of each other," said Darlene Williams, an occupational therapist at New York State Psychiatric Institute in Washington Heights, of the group sessions that continue to meet during the pandemic. She is a 40-year veteran of the state's inpatient centers and a regional coordinator for PEF members in downstate facilities, including some of the largest in the state, like Manhattan, Bronx, and Kingsboro Psychiatric Centers.

"Somebody is going to have to die and then maybe a change will happen," she said. "I had one co-worker just tell me three days ago, 'Darlene, I don't want to die because I had to come into work.'"

In response to the outbreak, Plastiras said OMH has taken steps to ensure the safety of residents and staff, including restricting visitors except in certain cases for children, and during discharge. The agency is no longer congregating people in groups and that clinicians and staff are providing services via video and phone whenever possible, he wrote in an email to Gotham Gazette.

"OMH is taking every precaution to protect our staff and the people we serve while we continue to provide essential behavioral health services,” he wrote.

But Williams says at the Psychiatric Institute, which is attached to Columbia Presyterian, group sessions have only been reduced to no more than five patients, and that at other larger institutions in the city the sessions continue without distancing of at least six feet between individuals, as recommended by public health officials. OMH may issue directives, she said, "but that information doesn't trickle down all the way into facilities."

Protective Precautions
Workers in OMH facilities are expressing concern that they have not been given the proper protective equipment to keep themselves and the residents safe. In emails among employees at several psychiatric centers reviewed by Gotham Gazette, workers shared with one another heartbreak and extreme duress at having to work with patients who are ill and dying without personal protection.

"We were begging, begging OMH to make sure that we could wear surgical masks because we were still so close working together, employees along with patients," Williams said. She added, if it was not for Wednesday's executive order requiring masks in public at all times, "we still wouldn't be wearing masks."

In an April 7 letter to OMH Commissioner Ann Marie Sullivan, State Senator David Carlucci, a Rockland County Democrat and chair of the Senate’s mental health committee, raised alarms about conditions at an inpatient facility in Sing Sing Prison jointly operated by OMH and the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

"[T]he deteriorated mental health of many of the patients in the program have prevented them from abiding with recommended hygiene practices…,” he wrote. “Despite these concerns, the Sing Sing ICP has not been provided with any hand sanitizers, cleaners, nor protective supplies."

Plastiras said OMH is working to procure and distribute personal protective equipment from available sources in accordance with CDC and state Department of Health guidance.

Staff aren't the only people in need of protective supplies, according to Williams. "The patients are also frightened because a lot of them this is their home and we're coming in and bringing in the virus. A lot of the patients are afraid, 'what will happen to me if I do get the virus?...where am I going, who is going to look after me?'" she said.

The residents of state psychiatric centers have substantial mental health factors that make it difficult for them to live on their own and meet their own daily needs. Many suffer from severe depression, delusions, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.

Patients may check into an inpatient facility voluntarily, but often people wind up admitted against their will after being seen in a general population hospital or other clinical setting and deemed by psychiatric doctors to be a danger to themselves or others.

Like other congregate living situations, state psychiatric centers are susceptible to unique consequences of the current coronavirus crisis. In addition to needing round-the-clock staffing, treatment for residents typically requires regular therapy, medication, and evaluation, as well as the structure and routine of life in an institution. Patients frequently have additional medical complexities that may make them more susceptible to the virus and patients may not be inclined to adhere to public safety guidelines.

"Our members, they care about this work and they want to do what's right for the patients,” said DiAntonio, the vice president of PEF. “And we recognize that there is a delicate balance between taking care of people that have high needs and that are going through real disruption, but also keeping people safe."

"One of the biggest issues we had with OMH is they made everybody ‘essential’ and refused to allow any remote working," DiAntonio told Gotham Gazette. "I've worked in facilities, I get that there are things that are hard to do from a distance. But again we are talking about a temporary situation that really may make a difference between life and death."

Plastiras said OMH is no longer holding non-essential trainings, though PEF leaders say they are still taking place. Workers are also afraid of what they have described as substandard quarantining procedures for patients who have tested positive for COVID-19.

Psychiatric wards in the past had isolation rooms for patients with infectious diseases but over the years facility budgets have been reduced and the quarantine rooms have disappeared, according to Williams, the occupational therapist at the Psychiatric Institute in Washington Heights. When a patient -- typically two to a room -- tests positive, their roommate is removed, she said, but the air is still circulated throughout the entire unit.

The union has struggled to get information on positive cases and deaths of patients and its members. "They are not openly sharing that. We finally were able to get them to make sure quarantine notices were being sent to employees if a home or location was under quarantine or there was a suspected case but for the longest time we were not getting that notice. They just started this week," DiAntonio said.

As the Times Union first reported, the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association has filed a complaint with the state and plans to go to court over conditions for its members working in the Central New York Psychiatric Center.

"The health and safety of our members is our number one priority. We are considering any and all actions, including legal action if necessary, to ensure their safety," wrote a PEF spokesperson, in an email to Gotham Gazette.

More Like a Hospital Than a Nursing Home
Reports from several sources indicate public health officials have treated OMH facilities, themselves hotbeds of coronavirus infection, more like overflow for overburdened city hospitals than like the homes of vulnerable populations.

According to DiAntonio, they have become overcrowded in recent weeks as hospital psychiatric units seeking to free up precious bed space for COVID-19 cases transfer to the facilities patients who cannot be discharged on their own or to a caregiver.

The Office of Mental Health did not respond to inquiries about how much the inpatient population has grown since the coronavirus outbreak began, but Plastiras said that 65 new employees had been hired in the last three weeks. The screening process for patient admissions has been "enhanced," according to Plastiras, but he did not elaborate on what the new protocol consists of.

The state Department of Health, which is coordinating the state's hospital system, did not directly respond to questions about patient transfers to OMH facilities, but a spokesperson for New York City Health + Hospitals, the city's public hospital system, confirmed that psychiatric patients that were not ready to be discharged were transferred to state psychiatric centers.

In a March 30 letter, PEF President Wayne Spence wrote to OMH Commissioner Sullivan imploring the agency to adopt a quarantine plan for patients transferred from coronavirus "hotspots" in hospitals to psychiatric centers, including isolation for the 14 days estimated to be the virus' incubation period. PEF representatives say quarantining protocols still do not include a full 14-day isolation.

On April 2, Dr. Brian Belfi, executive director of Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Ward's Island, sent an email to staff saying the center would soon be taking admissions from female units on Rikers Island. "These are inmates that would have historically gone to Elmhurst which is overburdened with COVID," read the email, which was reviewed by Gotham Gazette.

Williams said there was a push by OMH to discharge patients from psychiatric centers but it was largely unsuccessful. "The movement of patients was a lot easier before the pandemic," she added. "Admissions are still happening but patients aren't going anywhere."

Meanwhile, a five-story addition to South Beach Psychiatric Center on Long Island, which was set to open this month to replace an old building damaged by Superstorm Sandy, is now being used to treat coronavirus patients and will no longer house psychiatric residents, according to Plastiras.

Element of Violence
It isn't all business as usual in the pandemic. Major disruptions in residents' routines are taking place as family visitations are cut off, favorite staff members fall ill, and off-campus movement is restricted. "It's sadder on our unit than it used to be. For a person who has been there for so many years and has seen so many things -- I've never seen anything this depressing," Williams said.

The limitations mean some required therapy sessions or family visits cannot take place, which for some is a barrier to being discharged. "We have some places where people are pissed because ‘I'm not getting out as quick’," she said.

OMH has one of the highest rates of workplace violence of any government agency. According to a state Department of Civil Service report, "patient restraint" is a leading cause of workers' compensation incidents, accounting for roughly 9 percent of the total in fiscal year 2019. The report says the job titles with the three highest workplace incident rates were Correction Officer, Direct Support Assistant, and Mental Health Therapy Aide. The two facilities with over 500 employees that had the highest rates were Mid-Hudson Psychiatric Institute and Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

Williams says physical altercations are not uncommon in inpatient psychiatric settings, but the current strain on daily life may push it to extremes. "It puts staff and our patients at risk because now violent outbursts can happen" more easily, she said.

"I think that's also probably one of the reasons that OMH is so resistant to changing things that might keep employees and patients safer because they do worry that too many changes will create more problems," said DiAntonio, the union vice president. "However...I think there are a lot of things that are in between having no services and having services provided in an alternative way."

"Radio Silence"
Inpatient psychiatric centers have gone entirely unmentioned in the daily briefings held by Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio, where they’ve fielded many questions about other vulnerable populations, including those in nursing homes and correctional facilities.

"In the realm of this specific branch of healthcare delivery it just feels like there's radio silence from providers, from the press, and just I think the general public awareness," said Dr. Julia Eilenberg, a psychiatrist who runs a private practice in Rhinebeck, New York.

"I have a patient who I just spoke to today who is profoundly depressed," she said. "And I'm trying so hard to keep her from needing to be admitted somewhere because I just don't know enough about where it would be safe from an infectious disease standpoint for her to go."

State Senator Michael Gianaris (photo: Senator Michael Gianaris/flickr)

April 15, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Senator Michael Gianaris on 'Canceling Rent' & State Senate Priorities

State Senator Michael Gianaris, a Queens Democrat who is the Deputy Majority Leader of the Senate, joined the show to discuss his push to "cancel rent" amid the onset of the coronavirus recession, other measures he wants to see government take in the face of the crisis, and his reflections on the recently-passed state budget.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax and @JarrettMurphy. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts, under "Max & Murphy," and listen to Max & Murphy live on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. on WBAI radio, 99.5FM or wbai.org.

Gov. Cuomo appears interested in seeing the demise of New York's smaller political parties (photo: New York Democratic Party)

Included in the bills to approve a state budget for the new fiscal year beginning April 1 was the creation of a new campaign finance system with a public-matching program, lower individual contribution limits, and various other changes to campaign finance law. But the controversial inclusion of changes to ballot thresholds could prove to be a poison pill, not for the law but for the several minor political parties that operate in New York’s electoral system.

The new thresholds to secure an automatic ballot line will be daunting for most, if not all, minor parties in the state, considering their showing in recent elections for governor and president. Other than the Democrats and Republicans, only the Conservative Party has been able to consistently garner the number of votes the new thresholds would require to ensure a party can easily nominate candidates for offices across the board for years at a time.

The new campaign finance system and ballot access laws were first put into place in December based on the binding recommendations of a commission created in last year’s budget deal. But that law was struck down by a New York Supreme Court judge who ruled that only the Legislature was constitutionally authorized to create or amend state law, leading to the Legislature voting the commission’s recommendations through in the state budget, with support from Governor Andrew Cuomo.

[Read: Previously Struck Down in Court, New State Campaign Finance System and Political Party Ballot Thresholds Passed in Budget]

One of the more controversial aspects of the law is the amendment of political party ballot access provisions. Previously, in order to gain an automatic ballot line, a political party had to have its nominee for governor receive 50,000 votes each four-year cycle. The new law significantly increased that requirement to 2% of votes or 130,000, whichever is greater, every two years, in gubernatorial and presidential elections.

Additionally, statewide candidates seeking to get on the ballot must gather 45,000 petition signatures from registered voters, up from 15,000 previously. 

The new thresholds go into effect this year, meaning it will be in play for the upcoming November presidential election, while the broader public financing program won’t begin until after the November 2022 statewide election, when Cuomo is expected to seek a fourth term.

Those changes were exactly what minor parties like the Working Families Party, Conservative Party, Green Party, Independence Party, and Libertarian Party had feared when the state commission was set up last year to look at campaign finance law. They worried that Cuomo, in an attempt to thwart the third parties, especially the Working Families Party (WFP), that had so often been a thorn in his side, was seeking to undermine the state’s constitutionally-protected system of fusion voting, which allows candidates to appear on the ballot under several party lines. The system gives minor parties some additional measure of political influence, as candidates seek their endorsement, and therefore the ability to steer issues in the state Legislature and elsewhere.

The WFP and Conservative Party sued, citing the commission’s lack of authority, and won. But the Legislature passage of the bill made their victory moot, though the WFP has promised to sue yet again.

Minor Party Enrollment and Recent Performance
Garnering 130,000 votes isn’t a heavy lift for the two major parties, Democrats and Republicans, but the new requirements could mean that minor parties will lose their ballot lines, and with it, much or all of the prominence they hold in the state’s political arena. The ballot requirement is the strictest across the country. No other state requires that a party qualify for ballot status every two years, and other populous states have over time eased party ballot access rather than make it harder.

Along with the two major parties, six smaller parties secured enough votes via their 2018 gubernatorial candidates to have automatic ballot lines for 2019 and 2020. Though party enrollment is not necessarily a determining factor, since voters can cast a ballot on any party line in a general election, some parties do have more dedicated voters. According to state Board of Elections data, as of February 21 this year, the Conservative Party had 159,612 enrolled voters; the Working Families Party had 46,043; the Green Party had 28,301; the Libertarian Party had 14,880; the Independence Party had 483,870 voters; and the newly-created Serve America Movement Party had 349.

In the 2018 statewide election, Cuomo (and his running-mate, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul) received 114,478 votes on the Working Families Party ballot line, the result of yet another reluctant compromise between Cuomo and the WFP after a bitter primary fight. With more than 6 million votes cast that year, a 2% threshold would have been about 122,000 votes, meaning under the new law the higher 130,000 threshold would apply and the WFP would have lost its ballot line.

Other parties would similarly have suffered. Howie Hawkins of the Green Party received about 104,000 votes, Larry Sharpe of the Libertarian Party got about 95,000 votes, and Cuomo received about 68,000 votes on the Independence Party line. The Serve America Movement Party just won the automatic ballot line by getting 55,441 votes with former Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner as its endorsed gubernatorial candidate. Only the Conservative Party, which saw its nominee, Republican Marc Molinaro, garner 253,000 votes, would have hit the magic number of the new threshold.

“Governor Cuomo claims that now is not the time for politics — yet behind closed doors he is blocking voters from supporting minor parties and the values they stand for,” said Sochie Nnaemeka, director of the New York Working Families Party, in a statement. Nnaemeka was not made available for an interview. “At a time when many Democrats are calling for fair and open elections, the Governor has made New York the most hostile state toward third parties in the entire nation. When he created a commission to wipe out third parties we sued and won. We feel as strongly now as we did then that the law is on our side — and we will win again in court."

Recent Presidential Elections
Given that the new thresholds go into effect this year for a presidential election -- and one that is expected to see enormous turnout (though the coronavirus outbreak could impact that prior assumption) -- recent such contests in New York may be instructive for how minor parties will fare this fall in securing an automatic ballot line for the next two years, which will include the 2022 gubernatorial election.

In the 2016 general election, for example, there were 7.8 million votes cast in New York, which would have set the new ballot threshold at over 156,000 votes. That year, Donald Trump received 292,392 votes on the Conservative Party line; Hillary Clinton got 140,043 votes on the Working Families Party line; Green Party nominee Jill Stein received 107,935 votes; Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson received 57,438 votes on that line, and another 119,160 votes on the Independence Party line; ; and Clinton received just 36,292 on the Women’s Equality Party line (the WEP lost its ballot line after receiving few votes nominating Cuomo in 2018).

Therefore, using the new thresholds, only the Conservative Party would have retained its automatic ballot line.

In the 2012 presidential election, with more than 7.1 million votes cast in New York, the bar under the new threshold would have been closer to 142,000 votes. Mitt Romney received 262,371 votes that year on the Conservative Party line; Barack Obama received 148,119 votes on the Working Families Party line; Green Party nominee Jill Stein got 39,982 votes; and Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson got 47,256 votes. There were also two minor parties whose presidential nominees barely received any votes – Peta Lindsay received 2,050 votes on the Party for Socialism and Liberation line and Virgil Goode received 6,274 votes on the Constitution Party line. Using the new thresholds that go into effect this year, the Conservative and Working Families Parties would have kept their ballot lines.

2014 Election for Governor
In the 2014 New York gubernatorial election, there were only 3.9 million votes cast so the threshold would again have been 130,000 votes. Conservative Party nominee Rob Astorino received 250,634 votes on that ballot line; Cuomo got 126,244 votes on the Working Families Party line; Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins got 184,419 votes; Cuomo received 77,762 on the Independence Party line; Libertarian Party nominee Michael McDermott got 16,769 votes; and the Women’s Equality Party, then newly created, got 53,802 votes on its line nominating Cuomo, who created the party in that year’s attempt to hurt the WFP. The Sapient Party nominated Steven Cohn and got 4,963 votes and Astorino received 51,492 votes on the Stop Common Core Party line that he and his allies created that year (though it met the 50,000-vote threshold at the time, it was taken over by political operatives that then turned it into the Reform Party, but that party then failed to keep the ballot line via the 2018 election).

Based on those numbers, the Conservative and Green Parties would have kept their ballot lines under the new system set to go into effect this year.

Who Will Survive
Based on past results, only the Conservative Party looks strongly poised to survive the new rules, though much will depend on how the parties are able to rally voters around the new ballot thresholds.

In 2018, the Conservative Party received those 253,000 votes with Molinaro and Julie Killian running for governor and lieutenant governor on its line. “We really never in our party's history dropped below what these numbers would be,” said Jerry Kassar, chair of the New York State Conservative Party, in a phone interview. 

But nevertheless Kassar opposes the new thresholds on principle. “People may say, ‘Well the Conservative Party benefits from this party or that party not being there.’ We're a part of a third party movement. We're not looking to see any political parties that were established disappear.”

He also worried that in creating the new thresholds, the Legislature allowed the governor to chip away at the fusion voting system without directly attacking it and set a precedent that will allow a slow creep over the rights of minor parties. But, he predicted that it could blow up in the governor’s face, particularly if the WFP survives the “life or death struggle” it faces.

“The governor is starting to play a game of chicken or a game of Russian roulette, I should say, with the third parties,” Kassar said. Cornered animals, he said, “have no choice but to fight back in as vicious a manner as they can and I think that's what he's created with many of these third parties.”

A nearly-empty State Senate Chamber as business is conducted amid coronavirus outbreak (photo: NY Senate)

If New Yorkers take Governor Andrew Cuomo’s word for it, the new $177 billion budget approved last week will “deliver results” for the people of the state and was a far cry from a “bare minimum” spending plan at a time when the state’s finances are racked by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. But within his own Democratic Party, which controls both houses of the Legislature where the plan was passed, the budget is a highly unpopular document that to many legislators fails to live up to the needs and priorities of New Yorkers.

"This is a moment in history unlike any other, and government needs to function and deliver results for the people of this state now more than ever — and that's exactly what we did with this budget," Cuomo, now in his third term, said in a statement last Thursday, after announcing the highlights of the budget agreement with the Legislature, which included a wide variety of policy and fiscal decisions.

Cuomo cited a number of policies that were passed, including a paid sick leave bill, legalizing gestational surrogacy, creating a new felony for hate crimes considered acts of ‘domestic terrorism,” banning gender-pricing disparities known as the “pink tax,” creating new regulations on vaping and e-cigarettes, establishing a $3 billion bond act for environmental restoration and climate mitigation projects, among others.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins similarly touted some of the same and other accomplishments, such as new controls of prescription drug prices, easing access to public assistance, bolstering unemployment insurance by $1 billion, and preventing huge cuts to education spending, and more -- but she also sounded a bittersweet note.

“This is not the budget we had hoped to pass at the beginning of Session, or even the budget we had envisioned just a month ago,” she said in a statement after the budget passed. “Our state’s financial situation has been thrust into a true economic crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic. Yet even in this crisis we managed to achieve a balanced budget that includes victories for the people of New York.”

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie boasted about environmental protection legislation, new gun control measures, the expansion of paid sick leave and particularly investments in higher education. “In these challenging and uncertain times, education and upward mobility have never been more important. That is why we fought relentlessly to ensure the preservation of critical funding for the programs New Yorkers count on to climb the economic ladder,” he said in a statement.

But the vote totals on the various budget bills and some of the floor speeches by Democratic legislators told a different story than the three people in ‘the room.’ An usually large number of Democratic lawmakers showed their displeasure with the fact that several progressive priorities were left out or modified, and chafed at some of the spending and tax decisions.

Recreational marijuana was not legalized. Bail reforms implemented just three months ago were rolled back. Renters suffering from the economic devastation of the coronavirus were not given any relief. Hospital funding was cut. A plan to reduce homelessness was again shelved. No new taxes on the wealthy were approved. Funding for public housing was not bolstered. School aid remained flat.

[Read: 10 Major Proposals Not Included in New State Budget]

This is the only the second year in Cuomo’s long tenure that Democrats have controlled both chambers of the state Legislature, after a decade of a Republican-led Senate and Democrat-dominated Assembly. Last year saw a raft of progressive bills across a range of issues: criminal justice reform, tenant protections, voting reform, women’s reproductive health, gun control, LGBTQ rights, environmental preservation, to name a few. So it wasn’t surprising that many Democrats, particularly in the 150-seat Assembly where they hold an overwhelming majority, were frustrated by the budget. What was unusual, though, was the number of "no" votes.

There isn’t one singular budget vote, but rather several appropriation bills that lawmakers vote on separately related to state operations, aid to localities, the legislature and judiciary, debt service, and capital projects. Then there are the Article VII Bills, grouped under four categories:  Public Protection and General Government (PPGG); Education, Labor and Family Assistance (ELFA); Transportation, Economic Development and Environmental Conservation (TED); and Revenue. They often include major policy decisions.

The votes varied but it was clear that a sizable number of Democrats were displeased. The ELFA bill, which contained the bail reform changes and included Medicaid overhaul provisions, barely squeaked through the Assembly, where it received 76 “yes” votes to 66 “no” votes, meaning it received the bare minimum number of votes to pass the chamber. It passed the 63-seat Senate 35-26. The TED bill was also a somewhat close vote in the Assembly, where it was approved 81-60, while the Senate passed it 39-22. There are 105 Democrats in the Assembly, and 40 members of the Senate Democratic conference.

In past years, Assembly Democrats voted in lock-step and near-unanimity to pass budgets agreed upon by the governor and legislative leaders, who typically conference major aspects of the compromises as they develop to ensure that most if not all members are on board. This year, however, a number of Democrats voted against key portions of the deal reached among Democratic leaders and didn’t hold back how they feel about the budget, even as some admitted that they voted for it despite the flaws they saw in it.

Assemblymember Aravella Simotas, a Queens Democrat who voted against the ELFA, TED and revenue bills, criticized the lack of new revenue raisers in the budget, the watering down of bail reform, cuts to healthcare and the underfunding of school aid, among other issues. “Decades of underfunding our most vital human services so the wealthy could get by without paying their fair share brought us to this point,” she said in a public statement. 

Assemblymember Yuh-line Niou, a Manhattan Democrat, similarly voted against the ELFA and TED bills. “In the recovery that must come after this crisis, what we need is not the cuts proposed by our governor but strong investments in our infrastructure and the public assets that could have mitigated this crisis had we only been willing to fund them previously,” she said as she explained her vote on the Assembly floor (the video of her remarks has been circulated widely on social media among progressives). “This budget, this values document, makes a terrible statement that we value big businesses and profits more than we value people, our people, the people of this state, and that is simply not who we are.”

Senator Brian Benjamin, also a Democrat from Manhattan, conceded that he was faced with impossible competing priorities. “I had 3 choices: a) vote yes for a negotiated budget where the Legislature has limited power; b) vote no and accept the Governor’s extender; or c) vote no on both and shut down the Govt. As a leader of the Senate, I took the hard vote and voted yes so others didn’t have to,” he tweeted on April 4.

If the government shut down, state employees would have gone unpaid during the outbreak, Benjamin noted. And he refused to cast a symbolic “no” vote to express his anger. “The ultimate lesson here is that the Senate and the Assembly have to work together and address our important nonbudgetary concerns BEFORE the budget process because if we don’t then the Governor has outsized power to address the issue and we will end up in this place again,” he added.

Senator Roxanne Persaud, a Brooklyn Democrat, professed a similar ambivalence in a statement to her constituents, noting that the final budget shows the “numerous tremendously difficult decisions” the Legislature had to make during the current crisis. “While I am not pleased with a number of final agreements contained in the thousands of pages of legislation, I am confident that my colleagues and I fought our hardest to deliver a balanced budget that mitigates some of the toughest possible outcomes,” she said.

In the days leading up to the budget deal, Assemblymember Robert Carroll, also a Brooklyn Democrat, wrote an op-ed asserting that negotiations were focused on the wrong priorities, calling for holding off on most policy decisions and passing a robust coronavirus relief agenda including a rent freeze and funded in part by higher taxes on top earners.

During a Wednesday interview on the Max & Murphy podcast, Queens State Senator Jessica Ramos criticized the bail rollbacks, hospital funding cuts, and other aspects of the budget deal in explaining her votes against pieces of it. She also lamented a lack of new revenue-generating measures, and connected what she sees as long-standing patterns of too-little investment in communities like she represents -- largely low-income and immigrant -- to the depth of the current coronavirus crisis.

"That’s why I’m so disappointed in the budget and why I voted 'no' on a few of the bills," Ramos said, "and I’m really hoping that we’re canceling rent soon, especially as May begins, and to figure out what the bailout looks like because every single New Yorker deserves the opportunity to be able to thrive after this calamity.”

“This is not a budget that anybody should be celebrating,” said Senator Andrew Gounardes, another Brooklyn Democrat, in his own public statement, though he did not vote against any bills. He pointed out that the budget was two days late, leading to delayed paychecks for state workers. If there had been any further delay, he said, New Yorkers waiting for unemployment checks from the state government would have continued to suffer.

Gounardes continued, “This is a budget that cut state spending by $5.7 billion, including more than $1 billion in healthcare at a time when our health network is working overtime to keep people alive. This is a budget that ignores the moral imperative to tax the ultrawealthy, raising the revenue we need to stave off cuts to critical services. This is a budget that failed to invest in our public higher education system, when it was needed most.”

Gounardes cited the same issue that Benjamin raised, as did Senator Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn Democrat, that the state budget process places far too much power in the governor’s office.

Myrie, who outlined the good and bad in the budget, said in a public statement to his constituents, “You should know that the budget process is constitutionally flawed. The Executive has enormous control over the agenda and the Legislature is often left with a "take it or leave it" proposition. During a pandemic, this imbalance is magnified. Under these conditions, the Leadership was faced with the prospects of shutting down the government during a public health crisis, or, accepting a flawed budget. They made the excruciatingly difficult decision to accept a flawed budget.” He noted that he nonetheless voted “no” on bills that contained provisions he did not agree with, including the cuts to Medicaid spending for hospitals and the bail reform rollback.

In a fiery speech on the Assembly floor, Bronx Assemblymember Michael Blake invoked the history of slavery, emancipation and the civil rights movement as he critiqued the watering down of bail reform, urging his colleagues to join him in voting “no.”

“It’s in this moment that we must truly ask ourselves what is more important, rushing to vote on a budget when many of us are afraid of being paid for a day or rushing to lock up more black or brown folk who get paid cents in a day?….For students, our seniors, our humans behind bars, this budget bill is not justice, it is the justification of continuing 401 years of injustice,” Blake said.

Other "no" votes by Democratic legislators on at least one budget bill included Senators Alessandra Biaggi, Gustavo Rivera, and Julia Salazar, as well as Assemblymembers Harvey Epstein, Jeff Aubry, Charles Barron, Catalina Cruz, Carmen De La Rosa, Mathylde Frontus, Nathalia Fernandez, Ron Kim, Joe Lentol, Walter Mosley, Danny O'Donnell, Felix Ortiz, Dan Quart, Jo Anne Simon, Latrice Walker, and Tremaine Wright. 

Republicans, meanwhile, still made up the vast majority of "no" votes in both houses. They were incensed that the budget was not a bare bones spending plan and that Democrats advanced a slew of non-revenue legislation. Most also wanted to see the changes to last year's bail reforms go further in the other direction.

“During unprecedented times that demand a concentrated focus, [the] state Majority rushed out a cluttered state budget that offered nothing of the kind,” said Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay, in a statement on the budget. “Concocted behind closed doors and advanced under the cover of darkness, the state’s final spending plan drifted too far from our current crisis and was entirely bogged down by misguided political policies.”

He added, “Assembly Majority rejected a Minority proposal to help small businesses and employees, but they extended tax credits to Hollywood studios. As restaurants everywhere are forced to close their doors, Majority politicians added more regulations that stifle growth and cut deeper into the industry’s bottom line. The appropriate time to discuss taxpayer-funded campaigns, gestational surrogacy or criminal justice reforms is in the light of day, with an open debate and transparent process.”

Gov. Cuomo votes, in person (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Wednesday that he will use his executive authority to allow all New Yorkers to vote by absentee ballot for the June 23 elections, to prevent long lines at the polls that could put people at risk of being exposed to the coronavirus. Elections that day will include party primaries for many seats and special elections open to all voters within the relevant districts.

“I've seen lines of people on television voting in other states. This is totally nonsensical,” Cuomo said at his daily coronavirus briefing on Wednesday, taking stock of presidential primary elections that have continued in other states. “God bless them for having such diligence for their civic duty that they would go stand on a line to vote. People shouldn't have to make that choice and, by executive order, all New Yorkers can vote absentee on the June 23 primaries coming up.”

New York’s presidential primary was originally scheduled for April 28 but the governor moved it to June 23, to coincide with the congressional and state primary elections. Two special elections in New York City, for a Brooklyn City Council seat and Queens Borough President, were also rescheduled for that date, as well as several special elections in other parts of the state.

There is no Republican primary for president after the party cancelled it since President Donald Trump is the only who made the ballot. There’s also a possibility that the Democratic primary could be scrapped, according to a City & State report, since Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign and former Vice President Joe Biden is now the presumptive nominee.

But, there are a variety of hotly-contested primaries still set to take place in June, as well as the aforementioned special elections.

The April 9 executive order from Cuomo suspends a portion of state election law and modifies it "to provide that due to the prevalence and community spread of COVID-19, an absentee ballot can be granted based on temporary illness and shall include the potential for contraction of the COVID-19 virus for any election held on or before June 23, 2020."

It also says that only for elections on or before June 23 of this year, election law is "modified to allow for electronic application, with no requirement for in-person signature or appearance to be able to access an absentee ballot."

Currently, state law only allows an absentee ballot for certain reasons: if a voter is expected to be absent from New York at the time of an election; if they’re unable to vote because of a temporary or permanent illness or disability; if a voter is the primary caregiver for someone who is ill or disabled; if an individual is a resident or patient of a Veterans Health Administration Hospital; or if a voter is in jail waiting for a Grand Jury decision or in prison after being convicted of a non-felony offense.

Cuomo’s order is set to open up the process, though it still relies on voters requesting an absentee ballot, falling short of the full vote-by-mail system that some want to eventually see whereby all voters are sent a ballot without having to take any action besides registering to vote and keeping their current address on file with the appropriate elections entity.

With New Yorkers being encouraged to stay at home short of an emergency and absolutely essential activities, there are ways to get an absentee ballot application without visiting a Board of Elections office.

Voters can obtain an absentee ballot application online from the state Board of Elections, in English and Spanish. The New York City Board of Elections also provides forms in Chinese, Korean, and Bengali.

Voters can also request an absentee ballot by mailing a letter to their local board of election, which must receive the request no earlier than 30 days and no later than seven days before the election. So, the earliest voters can request an absentee ballot for the June elections is May 24, which in part allows time for ballots to be finalized. And for this June’s elections, the letter or an application must be postmarked by June 16 the latest.

New York City voters can also request an application by calling 1-866-VOTE-NYC (1-866-868-3692). The city BOE will then mail the voter a postage-paid application. All voters can designate someone else to pick up an application and absentee ballot if they have a valid reason for not being able to do so personally.

June 22 is the last day to file an absentee ballot application in person or postmark an absentee ballot by mail. If another individual is designated to file the ballot, they must do so by June 23. A mailed ballot must be received by June 30 in order to count.

With the change in election dates, voter registration deadlines have also changed. To vote in the primary, an individual must postmark a registration application by May 29 – it has to be received by the BOE by June 3. May 29 is also the last day to register in person at the BOE offices. A change of address will be processed if the BOE receives it by June 3.

Since New York holds closed primaries, only those voters who have designated a political party on their voter registration can cast a ballot in that party’s primary. The deadline for changing party affiliation, however, was February 14.

It’s also important to note that while election day for June is Tuesday the 23rd, there will be an early voting period from Saturday, June 13 through Sunday, June 21. No modifications to in-person voting have been announced at this point.

Note: this story has been updated with the language from Cuomo's relevant executive order.