By Harper Neidig

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders criticized New York’s voting laws Tuesday night, shortly after results came in showing that he lost the state’s primary to front-runner Hillary Clinton.

“While I congratulate Secretary Clinton, I must say that I am really concerned about the conduct of the voting process in New York state, and I hope that that process will change in the future,” Sanders told reporters in Burlington, Vt., according to the Burlington Free Press.

“I remain also concerned that in a state as large as New York, almost 30 percent of the eligible voters, some 3 million New Yorkers, were unable to vote today because they had registered as independents, not Democrats or Republicans, and that makes no sense,” he added.

Read the rest of this article on TheHill.com

New York Had the Second Lowest Voter Turnout So Far This Election Season

When you are only beating Louisiana, something is very wrong.

Editorial: California’s presidential primaries matter this year — and too many voters may be left out

This year, it seems, California’s presidential primaries may finally matter. But many voters could lose their opportunity to participate if they don’t act soon. That’s because the June 7 primaries are not open races, in which voters may simply show up and choose among all the possible candidates. Rather, these are party nominating contests, and it is the parties themselves that set the rules about who can participate. Only registered Republicans may cast ballots for Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich. The Democratic Party restricts its primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders to registered Democrats and to voters listed as “no party preference.”

With so much interest in this year’s primary, elections officials are concerned that many Californians won’t be able to participate in the presidential primary of their choice because they don’t know the rules, don’t know their party status or have registered for the wrong party. A Times survey recently found, for instance, that three out of four people who had signed up as American Independents didn’t realize they had registered for a real, right-wing political party. Many thought they were simply signing up as lower-case “i” independents (the unaffiliated voters California classifies as “no party preference” voters or, as they were formerly called, “decline to state” voters).

Intentional or not, American Independents will be given an AIP ballot on June 7 with a list of candidates most have never heard of, and they’ll be barred from voting in the Democratic or Republican presidential primaries. And that at a time when California leaders have adopted laws designed to boost turnout and participation. Secretary of State Alex Padilla ought to revisit the voter registration form to eliminate that confusing element and any others that people encounter when they sign up to vote.

Read the rest of this editorial at LATimes.com

Failure, Fraud and More In New York’s Punk Rock Voting Disaster

New York City watchdog decries ‘irregularities’ in primary voting

A New York City official on Tuesday ordered an audit of the city’s election authorities, citing “deep concern over widespread reports of poll site problems and irregularities” as voters cast their ballots in the state’s primary election.

New York Republicans and Democrats are holding presidential nominating contests for the Nov. 8 election. Delegate-rich New York, the fourth most populous U.S. state, is a big prize for the candidates.

“There is nothing more sacred in our nation than the right to vote, yet election after election, reports come in of people who were inexplicably purged from the polls, told to vote at the wrong location or unable to get into their polling site,” city Comptroller Scott Stringer said.

Stringer said his office had received reports of polling stations that failed to open on time and were unable to tell voters when they would be operational. A voter in the borough of Queens reported a broken machine and staff instructing voters to place their ballots in a “slot” for processing at a later time.

Read the rest of this article at Reuters.com

Sanders campaign, New York officials cry foul after New York voters report issues

“It is absurd that in Brooklyn, New York — where I was born, actually — tens of thousands of people as I understand it, have been purged from the voting rolls,” Sanders said during an evening campaign rally at Penn State University.

In an email to CNN, Sanders spokesman Karthik Ganapathy called the state’s handling of the primary a “shameful demonstration.”

“From long lines and dramatic understaffing to longtime voters being forced to cast affidavit ballots and thousands of registered New Yorkers being dropped from the rolls, what’s happening today is a disgrace,” he said.

Election Justice USA, a voter rights organization, told CNN it will go to Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Wednesday morning as part of an effort to have provisional ballots from voters disenfranchised by the Board of Elections counted before the primary results are certified.

Read the rest of this article on CNN.com

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