Six months after up to 100,000 Brooklyn voters received misprinted and disqualifying absentee ballots for the 2020 presidential election, the New York City Board of Elections (BOE) admitted it did not send its own staff to do quality inspections at absentee ballot vendor sites to ensure they would be able to meet the requirements of their contracts for the general election last year. It is unclear if the lack of oversight enabled the mistake but, according to the BOE, the vendor bore the costs of redistributing corrected ballots.

The revelation comes as the embattled

Voting in NYC in a pandemic (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

The first presidential election in New York City to have both early and universal mail-in voting showed a significant portion of the electorate taking advantage of each of the new voting methods.

Across the city, roughly 42% of those who voted cast ballots in-person on Election Day, while 37% voted at an early voting site, and 22% mailed in ballots, according to the New York City Campaign Finance Board. At ...

Joe Biden (photo: Adam Schultz/Biden for President)

New York City's long-awaited election results were finally certified Tuesday, four weeks after polls closed and just past the state's statutory deadline, making the five boroughs one of the last jurisdictions in the country to finalize the 2020 count.

The results show that, in a year with significantly more ballots cast and massive changes in party alignments, the Democratic Party made barely any gains in presidential turnout, while the smaller, more progressive Working Families Party made huge strides as it

Voters in 2020 (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Despite concerns about how the coronavirus pandemic may affect voter turnout, more than 2.97 million New York City voters cast a ballot in the 2020 general election, an increase of about 7.5% or 210,000 more votes than were cast in the city in the last presidential election, in 2016.

By election night, more than 2.25 million New York City residents had voted in person, 1.1 million of whom cast a ballot in the nine days of early voting before Election Day. As expected, absentee voting

Several local races hing on absentee ballots (photo: @JustinBrannan)

As New York election officials begin counting absentee ballots from the general election, there are dozens of races that have yet to be decided. Based on the in-person tallies, Democrats in several state and congressional races are currently running behind Republicans and are hoping that absentees will deliver them victories. But in three races in overlapping districts in Southern Brooklyn and Staten Island, areas home to more Republican voters than most other parts of the heavily Democratic city, absentees

Gov. Cuomo with now-State Senator Andrew Gounardes in Oct. 2018 (photo: Cuomo/Flickr)

After flipping several State Senate seats in 2018 and taking control of the upper legislative chamber and therefore all of state government, Democrats sought to hold onto their wide majority this year even with a Republican president atop the ticket. They believed they might be able to win a supermajority in the chamber to match that of Democrats in the Assembly by picking up at least two additional Senate seats, if not more.

But as Senate

The New York State Senate chambers (photo: NY Senate)

Though hundreds of thousands of votes across New York are still to be counted and many races are not yet called, it appears certain that Democrats will retain the majority in the State Senate that they won two years ago, and by a fairly wide margin. But, Republicans seem poised to regain several seats in the chamber to narrow what has been an exceptionally wide 40-23 seat margin and keep Democrats from expanding it to ...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez & NYWFP Director Sochie Nnaemeka (photo: @AOC)

Many of New York’s smaller political parties face an uncertain future after they appear to have failed to garner enough votes to keep an automatic ballot line over the next two years under new rules that went into effect in this election cycle. Only the Working Families Party and the Conservative Party seem to have emerged unscathed, rallying voters to meet new thresholds through votes for their presidential and vice presidential nominees. 

As part of the state budget, the Legislature and

A long early voting line (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

New York City's first early voting period in a presidential general election saw 1.1 million in-person votes cast, hours of waiting across the city, and the threat of a court challenge to expand voting options. Experts and administrators didn't know exactly what to expect because of the unprecedented confluence of the coronavirus pandemic, universal absentee voting, and Trump-era political zeal.

The results point to a number of potential changes that could improve the option in the

Voters at the polls (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

UPDATE as of November 15: Voter Turnout in New York City Jumped 7.5% from 2016 to 2020

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Original article from November 3:

While final results and tallies are still unknown, it appears that the 2020 election has seen an increase in voter turnout in New York, as it has across the

2020 Voting (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Results are not official, hundreds of thousands of ballots are still to be counted, and only some New York races can be called as of election night, but millions of votes cast by New Yorkers in the 2020 general election have provided some indication of winners of a number of races.

In-person voting totals across New York State hit 6,495,194 on election night, per the State Board of Elections, including 2,346,302 in New York City, with hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots still to be

Joe Biden, with Andrew Cuomo (photo: governor's office)

The country will be watching, and voting, with bated breath on Tuesday as the most consequential presidential election in decades nears conclusion. More than 84 million Americans have already cast their ballots in early voting and turnout is expected to break records despite the lingering coronavirus pandemic. 

There’s much at stake for New York City in this election and it’s an understatement

Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis, left, & Rep. Max Rose face off in NY-11

Voting in the 2020 general election is set to come to a conclusion on Tuesday, November 3, Election Day. The full, official results won't be known for weeks.

The eyes of the world are on the presidential race between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, and it's unclear when a winner may be declared.

Though it's unlikely Trump can pull off an upset and beat Biden in New York, voters here have been going to the polls in large numbers, just

New York Democrats in 2016 (photo: New York Democratic Party)

October 28, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs

Jay Jacobs, chair of the New York State Democratic Party, joined the show to discuss key races for the House of Representatives and State Senate, as well as other issues related to the 2020 elections in New York.

Listen to the conversation and let

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (photo: NY Senate)

Two years ago, Democrats won a majority in the New York State Senate for the first time in eight years, winning full control of the state Legislature and the governor’s office and allowing them to pursue a raft of progressive legislation that had stalled under Republican obstruction. As the New York GOP has continued to diminish since that election, including another wave of retirements among state senators, and as President Donald Trump remains unpopular in the state, Democrats now see an opportunity to

Lou Puliafito & Rebecca Seawright

Last time she faced a Republican challenger, in 2016, Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright won by a margin of nearly 50 points. Her Assembly district, which includes the Upper East Side, Yorkville, and Roosevelt Island, has a solid Republican presence but is generally considered a firmly Democratic stronghold. Yet due to a series of ballot controversies, Seawright’s reelection bid has been thrust into some uncertainty this year.

The trouble started for the Assembly member this Spring, when her

Phara Souffrant Forrest (photo: Phara for Assembly)

October 21, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Phara Souffrant Forrest on Her Campaign for Assembly

Phara Souffrant Forrest, a candidate for State Assembly in Brooklyn, joined the show to discuss her Democratic primary win over incumbent Walter Mosley, her platform, why the general election is being contested, the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America in New York City, and more.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter ...

The Working Families Party's survival is on the ballot (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)

When we each ran for State Senate, the Democratic establishment supported our opponents — but the Working Families Party had our backs. That’s because for over 20 years, the WFP has stood up for working people’s champions running for the New York state Legislature and fought for true progressive power in Albany. So it’s no surprise that Governor Cuomo and the corporate

State Senator Andrew Gounardes (photo: @Sen_Gounardes)

October 7, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: State Senator Andrew Gounardes on His Case for Reelection

State Senator Andrew Gounardes joined the show to discuss his reelection bid.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMaxand @JarrettMurphy. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the

 NYC BOE Executive Director Michael Ryan (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

The New York City Board of Elections has not submitted a state-mandated report on its staffing needs for this fall, blowing past a September 20 deadline set by Governor Andrew Cuomo and raising concerns about the city's preparedness for the consequential general election. It is the only jurisdiction in the state to miss the deadline, according to officials at the State Board of Elections, to which the reports are due.

The mandate and deadline, set in a late-August executive

Early voting at a poll site can be a breeze (photo: @BOENYC)

As election administrators across the state prepare themselves for a second, larger wave of mass absentee voting this fall, officials and voting advocates are encouraging as many voters as possible to take advantage of the state's in-person early voting option as an alternative to crowded Election Day poll sites and the uncertainty of casting a ballot by mail.

Early voting, first launched statewide in 2019, will be offered this fall from October 24 through November 1 and gives all

State Senators & election officials (photo: Senator Gianaris' office)

After the June primaries, when tens of thousands of absentee ballots were rejected on technical grounds or never cast because they were mailed to voters late or not at all, state lawmakers passed a series of measures aimed at correcting some of those mishaps. But several other bills introduced by legislators and pushed by voting rights advocates that could prevent thousands of ballots from being thrown out are still on the table as the clock ticks toward the

Queens Assembly candidate Khaleel Anderson (photo: @KhaleelAnderson)

A younger generation of Democratic political candidates — which has grown up amid the Great Recession, growing inequality, rising costs of higher education and massive student loan debt, the ticking time-bomb that is climate change, and other crises including, now, the coronavirus pandemic and its fallout — has been offering ambitious policy goals and great urgency around achieving them, resonating with voters and finding success in their runs for office.

In recent election cycles, New York

Bronx political leaders Heastie, Diaz Jr., Crespo (photo: Bronx Borough President's Office)

To say the Bronx political landscape is changing is simultaneously both a trite observation and a vast understatement. The once-vaunted Democratic machine in the borough is currently leaderless and has lost many of its longtime fixtures in recent years, with more on their way off the political stage. This comes at a time when progressive and anti-establishment forces are gaining momentum across the city, though in some ways less so in the

City Council Member Donovan Richards (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

August 19, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Donovan Richards on Police Reform, Jobs & His Vision for Queens

City Council Member Donovan Richards, very likely the next Queens Borough President, joined the show to discuss how he plans to operate as borough president and what's next as he chairs the Council's public safety committee.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter ...