On Friday Oct. 20, 2017, NYDLC filed a letter with AG Schneiderman's office, copied to the full State Board of Election Leadership calling for the AG and SBOE to take proactive measures and corrective action to curb several recurring voting rights violations and inexcusable material departures from state and federal voting laws across the Empire State, particularly in the Westchester/Lower Hudson Valley region.

NYDLC has filed a letter with AG Schneiderman's office, copied to the full State Board of Election Leadership calling for the AG and SBOE to take proactive measures and corrective action to curb several recurring voting rights violations and inexcusable material departures from state and federal voting laws across the Empire State, particularly in the Westchester/Lower Hudson Valley region.

The OAG letter highlights irregular affidavit ballot procedures, language access deficiencies, illegal challenges and intimidation, and poll-worker confusion about the proper use of emergency ballots, all of which chips away at the ability of eligible New Yorkers to cast a ballot that counts. These issues represent some of the more common election irregularities NYDLC has seen in the region in recent years. In some cases, these practices can accurately be described as widespread and systematic in nature. 

The letter requests that OAG’s Civil Rights Bureau revise and reissue its October 17, 2016 Letter to the Co-Chairs and Commissioners of the NYS Board of Election and expand the recipients to include all County BOE Commissioners. NYDLC also seeks to toughen the revised letter and recommends that OAG push for corrective actions to better inform the public. 

The NYDLC letter, signed by the Statewide Co-Chairs and Westchester-LoHud Regional Leadership explains that "these laws are intended to provide for fair and orderly administration of elections in a way that protects voters from intentional or inadvertent voter suppression. In practice, their misapplication continues to disenfranchise far too many New Yorkers." Read the full NYDLC letter to OAG here.

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