By COLlive reporter
At least one Crown Heights resident has complained of possible voter intimidation taking place at local voting stations.
The federal government, which has banned voter intimidation, defines the act as threatening or coercing an individual in order to interfere with his or her right to vote.
One Crown Heights resident told COLlive that volunteers at the voting location on Nostrand Avenue between President and Carroll Streets were instructing voters to vote either democrat or republican.
“When I said I didn’t know how to vote, she told me to vote ‘down one column,’ the Crown Heights resident, who asked not to be named, said. “‘You can’t go back and forth between rows,’ she told me,” the resident said.
The general rule to know if voter intimidation is taking place, writes the NY Times, is if anyone at the polls is trying to directly interfere with how or whether an individual casts a ballot, that is most likely voter intimidation.
There may be exceptions depending on where you are, but that is a rule of thumb offered by Dale Ho, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project.
“If they’re interacting with the voter directly,” he said, “and in any way discouraging people from voting — interfering with their ability to vote, impeding them from voting — then that is likely a problem.”
Voters in Queens Voters claimed they received ballots at their Queens poll sites Tuesday that were pre-filled for the Democratic candidates, prompting allegations of voter intimidation on the part of poll workers, DNA Info reported.
Marcos Pichardo, a sergeant at the 106th Precinct in Ozone Park, said the ballot he was handed at P.S. 306 in Woodhaven this morning already had the bubbles filled in.
“I opened it up and it was filled out” for the Democratic line, he said.
Poll workers told him it was a “mistake,” voided the ballot and handed him a new one — but didn’t explain what happened, he told DNA Info.
“They didn’t say how it got filled out,” he said, declining to say who he planned to vote for in the presidential election.
She was tells everyone ” just fill in the democratic line straight down” This was on Crown and Nostrand.
To those who knew that wrong directions were being given: Did you speak up? Did you promptly notify whoever was overseeing the proceedings and give all pertinent information to the local voting commissions at all levels? Voter education is the best defense against the incidents cited here. The internet is not the effective place to register these complaints so a that these wrongfully acting persons are chastised. All schools should teach children from a young age that a privlage of being a US citizen is our right to our private vote without fear of intrusion or reprisal by any person… Read more »
The lady told me to vote either Rep. or Dem. I told her I didn’t want to vote for everyone in the same party
I saw and heard the poll worker tell voters to vote in a vertical line. when she got to me, I told her I’d read the instructions myself.
The lady sitting by the computerized ballot reader was screaming I hope they know what their doing…
By the voting place across from razag they were telling people to only vote in one line,
Empire and Troy
Whoever wins the elections, some things never change. Like the almighty sense of entitlement the local low lifes of crown heights always seem to have, to a free for all against our community.
Wonderful experience five minutes in and out people couldnt have been nicer
the walls around the voting boots are covered with mirrors and there is no privacy
This happened to me. Last election too! That is how they instruct you if you are new or unsure I asked around other people and was given the correct information. This time I just ignored the girl who couldn’t read ‘conservative’ and told me to vote in a straight line!!
But really bothered me to see them tell other people the same!
They were VERY rude to me at the PS on Empire and Troy.
Made a derogatory comment about me making sure i am who i said i am.
TRUMP!
I asked the election coordinator how to write in Evan McMullin, and she then proceeded to tell me the same thing.
“You can’t write in a candidate, you must pick a party and vote in a straight line”.
I then attempted at corrected her, telling her that it’s incorrect. But she insisted that I pick one party and vote down ballot.
If this has happened to anyone else please contact me at [email protected]. If you have a recording and the officials name, even better.