With the presidential primary underway, a special hotline has been set up to take in complaints of alleged voter fraud or voter intimidation by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara.

The office is on hand to hear complaints at (212) 637-0840 on Tuesday, April 19, 2016:

Complaints can also be made to the Federal Bureau of Investigation at (212) 384-1000.

Federal laws mandate local election authorities make voting accessible to disabled and elderly voters.  Voters who require assistance because of blindness, disability, or inability to read and write have the right to receive such assistance from a person of their own choosing.  In counties with substantial numbers of non-English speaking voters, federal laws prohibit the denial or abridgement of a voter’s ability to participate in the election process in certain languages other than English (i.e., Spanish, Chinese, Korean).

In addition, certain activities designed to subvert the integrity of the election process are federal crimes.  It is a federal crime, for example, to deprive citizens of their right to fair elections or to conspire to do so.  Specific election laws also make it a crime to bribe or intimidate voters, to cause ballots to be cast fraudulently in the names of individuals who did not vote (“ballot stuffing”), to vote more than once, or to alter or falsify the vote count.  It can also be a federal offense to challenge qualified voters without cause and in bad faith or to harass persons seeking to vote for the purpose of discouraging their vote.

The United States Attorneys also noted that the following additional telephone numbers are available on Election Day for citizens to call for routine inquiries, such as where to vote or how late the polls are open, or to register complaints that may concern violations of New York State election laws:

In the Bronx, the main hotline from the borough’s Board of Elections office is (718) 299-9017.