Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories

100,000 New Yorkers receive flawed absentee ballots

100,000 New Yorkers receive flawed absentee ballots
Noam Galai/Getty Images

Nearly 100,000 New York City voters were mailed general election ballots with incorrect names and return addresses.

The defective absentee ballots were first reported on Monday, and the following day the New York City Board of Elections confirmed the problem affected 99,477 voters in Brooklyn who had requested one. New ballots with correct information will be printed and sent immediately to those voters.

With just 34 days until voting ends Nov. 3, this kind of critical error could sow confusion and distrust in an election already flooded with attacks — mostly prominently from President Trump — on mail voting.


In New York, absentee voters must place their completed ballot in a return, or "oath," envelope that includes the person's name, address and voter ID. After signing the oath envelope, the voter places it in a second envelope to be mailed back to election officials. But for those 100,000 voters in Brooklyn, the wrong identification information was printed on their oath envelopes.

The elections board blamed the error on the printing company, Phoenix Graphics, which had been contracted to print and mail ballots for Brooklyn and Queens — although the issue appears to be confined to Brooklyn. The company has been ordered to resend ballots with the correct information and a notice explaining the error.

Michael Ryan, executive director of the elections board, said in a meeting Tuesday afternoon that the board will "do everything that it needs to do administratively both in communication with the voters on the upfront on the re-mailing aspect and on the back end to ensure that all of the ballots received are appropriately processed and the votes that are tallied are properly credited to the voters who have participated in the process."

The board tweeted Tuesday night that voters who had received incorrect ballots should direct message, email or call the board.

In August, New York added fear of coronavirus infection as a valid excuse for voting absentee this fall, joining 11 other states that have temporarily extended mail voting eligibility to all voters. The board reported that 520,000 voters across the city had requested absentee ballots.

This is not the first election problem to arise in the Big Apple this year. In the June primary, when all voters were sent an absentee ballot application, election officials were inundated with mail ballots and results took more than a month to finalize.

Tens of thousands of primary ballots were also disqualified due to small errors, such as a missing signature or an improperly sealed envelope. New York officials have since made changes to give voters an opportunity to address these issues and "cure" their mailed ballots.

During the first presidential debate Tuesday night, Trump again argued against mail-in voting because it could delay election results. "We might not know for months because these ballots are going to be all over," he said.

The president also used the moment as an opportunity to assert another false claim that voting by mail leads to widespread fraud, pointing to Manhattan as an example due to the high rejection rate of mail ballots in the primary.


Read More

The Trump Administration Is Losing Its Fight to Take Over Elections
Rawpixel/Getty

The Trump Administration Is Losing Its Fight to Take Over Elections

The Trump administration has expended significant resources trying to meddle in elections ahead of the midterms. This coordinated campaign includes attempts to limit who can vote, wrestle away states’ authority over elections, and undermine public confidence in election outcomes. So far, virtually everything the administration has tried has been blocked by courts, failed in Congress, or simply fizzled out.

Currently, the administration is 0–21 in its court cases seeking to amass state voter data. In dozens of states, election officials from both parties have refused to turn over their complete voter rolls, which contain confidential personal information, to the Justice Department. Federal courts from Arizona to Maine have thrown out the department’s lawsuits, ruling that the federal government lacks the power to force states to hand over this data on a mass scale.

Keep ReadingShow less
 Medical Vial Vaccine on Shelf Table

Peptides like BPC-157, MOTS-c and Semax are surging in popularity despite limited human evidence. Here’s why FDA regulation, research and safety matter.

skaman306/Getty Images

Millions Using Unapproved Peptides as FDA Debates Regulation

Peptides, the short chains of amino acids that help regulate biological functions, have become the latest obsession in health, fitness, and longevity.

Online clinics and wellness influencers promote them as ways to heal injuries, reduce inflammation, improve metabolism, sharpen thinking, and slow aging.

Keep ReadingShow less
Woman putting savings in a white piggy bank.

How tax cuts, deregulation and weakened unions helped shift the U.S. from the postwar Great Compression to today’s Great Divide—and examine the Gomory-Baumol corporate tax proposal as an alternative.

Guido Mieth/Getty Images

Affordability Crisis: From The Great Compression to the Great Divide

Trickle-down policies facilitated the transition from the mid-20th century "Great Compression “characterized by low-wage inequality and strong labor unions—to the "Great Divide" by shifting the economic focus from mass purchasing power to capital accumulation through massive tax cuts and deregulation.

The Great Compression

Following World War II, the United States experienced an unprecedented period of economic egalitarianism. Propelled by the G.I. Bill, the rise of powerful labor unions, and a heavily progressive tax code, the income gap between the wealthiest Americans and the working class shrank dramatically.

Keep ReadingShow less
What Does the China–U.S. Trade Truce Mean for American Industry?

USA and China trade relations, cooperation strategy. US America and China flags on chess king on a chessboard.

Getty Images

What Does the China–U.S. Trade Truce Mean for American Industry?

This nonpartisan policy brief, written by an ACE fellow, is republished by The Fulcrum as part of our partnership with the Alliance for Civic Engagement and our NextGen initiative — elevating student voices, strengthening civic education, and helping readers better understand democracy and public policy.

What Happened at the May 2026 Trump-Xi Summit?

Keep ReadingShow less