District 11 Council Member Eric Dinowitz released a statement on June 8 in which he renewed his call to the New York City Board of Elections (BOE) to allow voters to cast their ballot at any poll site within the county in which they live. The statement comes on the heels of a confusing situation regarding a poll site change in the Kingsbridge neighborhood of the Bronx.

 

Kingsbridge residents previously voted at In-Tech Academy but were moved to the Bronx High School of Science, a location a good distance away from their homes. The BOE has since updated their plans to allow Kingsbridge voters to also vote at In-Tech, albeit in a separate room at the location.

 

“Voters across our city will greatly benefit from the ability to vote at any poll site within the county they live in,” said Dinowitz. “It was incredibly disappointing that the Board of Elections initially moved a local and accessible polling location for the voters of Kingsbridge with less than one week until the start of early voting for this critical primary election, and I am pleased to see that they rectified the situation.”

 

He added, “Although it has been resolved, when the Board of Elections makes significant and unannounced changes such as this, it undermines our democratic process. I have spent years advocating to make voting easier and more accessible, and last minute decisions like this disenfranchise voters, and in fact make it harder to vote. This is yet another reason why the Board of Elections should allow voting at any poll site within a given county.”

 

According to Dinowitz’s office, the councilman has “consistently” called for more early voting locations as a Democratic District Leader since early voting was enacted in 2019 in order to help make voting easier for every community in the North Bronx (and across the City).

 

The New York primary elections will take place on Tuesday, June 22. Early voting began June 12 and will continue until June 20. May 28 was the last day to register to vote in the June 22 primary election. There are 22 early voting sites throughout the Bronx. Visit find my poll site to find your early voting and election day poll site, and view a sample ballot. Check the hours and location of your poll site before you participate in early voting.

 

All registered voters can request an absentee ballot be mailed to them if they wish to vote by mail. The deadline to request a mailed ballot online, by email, fax, or by mail is Tuesday, June 15, 2021. You can submit your ballot request online or mail a paper request form to the New York City Board of Elections. Note the application request must be postmarked by June 15.

 

For information about the new voting system (ranked choice voting) see here. For a full list of all candidates running in the Bronx, and in the Citywide races, see here.