Over 20% of mail-in ballots were rejected in the June 23 Democratic presidential primary. Over 84,000 mail-in votes were disqualified, according to a New York Post report.
The New York City Board of Elections said it received 403,103 mail-in ballots, but only 318,995 vote-by-mail ballots were counted. That means that 84,108 mail-in votes were not counted or invalidated, which is 21% of the total. Approximately 30,000 mail-in ballots in Brooklyn, which is 25% of mail-in ballots in the borough, were dismissed.
The reasons why the ballots were rejected include arriving late, lacking a postmark, or no signature from the voter.
“It’s nuts. That is way too high,” Justin Levitt, a former Department of Justice voting rights official and current professor at Loyola Law School, told NBC News. “The rejection rates shows, I think, two things running headlong into each other. They show some very real problems with New York laws. … It also shows the fact that New Yorkers aren’t used to voting by mail.”
