Iran Press/ America: Saturday was the first time New Yorkers were allowed to vote early in a presidential election, which is expected to produce record voter turnout.
As many as 3.3 million people out of 4.7 million active New York City voters, or 70 percent, are expected to vote by mail or in person, according to one estimate.
Recent mishaps involving absentee ballots drove many voters to the polls on Saturday. This week, some voters said they did not trust that their votes would be counted if they mailed in absentee ballots.
Late last month, the city’s Board of Elections came under fire after as many as 100,000 voters in Brooklyn received absentee ballots with the wrong names and addresses.
During the June primaries, the elections board, a quasi-independent agency controlled by the two major parties, failed to send mail-in ballots in time to an unknown number of voters.
It also took more than six weeks to finalize the results in key congressional Democratic primary races because of an influx of absentee ballots.
The recent failures and reports of long lines and waits in other parts of the country, most notably in Georgia and Texas, have raised fears that New York’s early voting might be marred by glitches.
Voters will have until Nov. 1 to cast their ballots. The nine-day early voting period is aimed at increasing voter participation by making voting more convenient.
Depending on the day, early voting sites will open as early as 7 a.m. and remain so until as late as 8 p.m., including this weekend and next.
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