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ABC News: New York, Kentucky among 6 states bracing for voting on Tuesday
"Two weeks includes the July 4 weekend," she said. "So there's a very real possibility that we may not have truly reliable results, until after the July 4 weekend -- and how far after July 4 we don't know."
Just two weeks after Georgia’s messy day at the polls, another six states are testing the waters of voting during the coronavirus crisis on Tuesday in the final stretch of the primary season.
Among the six, two are drawing outsize attention — Kentucky and New York — where a competitive Senate Democratic primary to take on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and a handful of congressional races are expected to be settled, but likely not on election night — further fueling trepidations for the fall. …
In New York, as the state’s on-again/off-again presidential primary was ultimately put back on again, election officials, readying for the rest of the elections on the ballot, franticly moved to prepare their staff and voters for the large-scale changes COVID-19 imposed on the electoral system — and at a scale far greater than for previous contests.
The quick adjustments included undertaking one of the largest expansions of vote-by-mail in one of the more restrictive states for the option, possibly setting up challenges on Tuesday. More than 1.8 million absentee ballots have been requested so far, according to the most recent data from the state board of elections, which compares to only 115,178 absentee ballots in the 2016 presidential primary — underscoring the state’s preference for in-person voting.
A massive influx of absentee ballots, along with potentially long lines at polling sites, could usher in more concerns for November’s election, particularly since the state is not planning on counting absentee ballots until all those ballots are in.
“So the most important thing for the public to know the process here in New York is going to be lengthy. The deadline for the boards to receive absentee ballots is June the 30th, that’s a week after the primary. So, they’re not going to be opening and starting to count absentee ballots until July 2 at the earliest,” said Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York.
“Two weeks includes the July 4 weekend,” she said. “So there’s a very real possibility that we may not have truly reliable results, until after the July 4 weekend — and how far after July 4 we don’t know.”
