On the November 8th, the New York City’s Board of Elections responded to discrimination reports filed by the Asian American Educational and Defense Fund during the midterm elections.
The Board of Elections clarified that some of the reports were the results of misunderstandings of the law. Compared to last year, this year’s election was a lot smoother, and it also provided more Asian language translation services. At the same time, the Board also acknowledged that some of its staff did not follow regulations and procedures and the board wanted to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused voters.
Observation reports released by the Asian American Educational and Defense Fund pointed out that there was no Chinese or Korean voting machine in PS 199 in Long Island City. Valerie Vazquez, a spokesperson for the Board of Elections, said the voting site at PS 199 was part of 12 election districts. Among them, only three had Chinese and Korean translation services. This was because of the number of Asian voters residing in the area. Some Asian voters, if they reside in areas with few Asians, most likely had to vote without the Chinese and Korean voting machines.
In addition, at PS 126 in Chinatown, Asian voters complained that Board staff asked them to show identification or voter notification cards before they could vote. Vasquez responded that since 2003, Board staff have had to ask voters who did not have a social security number, driver license, or state identification card to provide some form of picture identification to vote. This procedure was implemented across all races, gender, and ages, and it was not targeted at Asians.
As for the request to show a voter notification card, Vasquez explained that in order to expedite the process of finding a voter’s name on the record when there were many voters, staff often asked whether voters brought their notification cards. She emphasized that voters did not need to bring voter notification cards, and that no one was turned away from voting on Tuesday for this reason.
According the report released by the Asian American Educational and Defense Fund, on election day PS 20 at Flushing did not show any Chinese or Korean notice signs. There were staff members who complained to the Asian American Educational and Defense Fund that there too many Chinese and Korean who did not know English. Vasquez said that no one had yet to make any formal complaint to the Board of Elections.
However, Vasquez admitted there was a voter, who was registered twenty years ago, at PS 12 in Queens who was asked to show an identification card. This was probably due to an error by the voting staff. She said that the Board of Election made its best effort to train its voting staff, but such mishandlings inevitably occurred. Therefore, the Board of Election has apologized for this incident. She emphasized that these types of cases were rare during this year’s Election Day and not part of a greater trend. This year, the New York Public Interest Research Group only received some four hundred complaints on its hotline. The electronic voting machines also received great reviews. These were all results of the efforts made by the Board of Election to meet the requirements of the Help American Vote Act.
