The latest fiasco is that New York City is re-sending 100,000 absentee ballots to Brooklyn voters – out of 140,000 sent so far to voters in the borough – due to envelopes with printing errors that listed an incorrect name or address. A Rochester vendor was blamed. Thus far, the Board of Elections has focused its response on trying to inform voters why they are receiving a second ballot, which leaves open the question of what happens if they send back both – perhaps having voted differently on two ballots. Some Board of Elections sources argue that the ballots are sufficiently ID-coded to avoid both being counted.

This was too much incompetence even for Mayor de Blasio: “It’s appalling,…I don’t know how many times we’re going to see the same thing happen at the Board of Elections and be surprised.” Governor Andrew Cuomo has tried to intervene to get the Board to re-send only the envelopes, not new ballots, leading to counter-charges from fellow Democrats that his proposal would “disenfranchise” voters who were stuck with only one ballot. A leading Brooklyn lawmaker has so lost faith in the mail-in system that he is publicly urging voters to show up in person…