Long Island’s Nassau County went all blue, and then a lot of faces went all red.
Last Tuesday, voters received voter information cards in the mail that tell them where to vote in the state’s upcoming primaries, and which primary they can vote in based on their enrollment. But the cards in this Republican-leaning county marked everyone as a Democrat, putting about 500,000 voters in the wrong party, according to WNBC-TV.
“We’re already starting to get phone calls from people, saying, ‘I’m a registered Republican, I’m a registered Conservative — how come I’m being identified as a Democrat? Who changed my registration?’ And they’re quite upset about it,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said.
“There’s a lot of confusion, there’s a lot of people emotionally upset about this,” he said.
“We believe that this is an error on the part of the mailing house that the Board of Elections used,” he said, according to CBS.
Human Error Turns Every Registered Nassau County Voter Democrat https://t.co/5EIOkJ0RDk
— pinkie deluxe (@pinkhair61) May 20, 2023
“We have been assured that to the over 900,000 registered active voters in Nassau County, that they will get the correct voter card this time,” he said.
The printing company, Phoenix Graphics of Rochester, issued an abject apology, according to WABC-TV.
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“Phoenix Graphics Inc. made a human error on Voter Information Cards for Nassau County. The voter’s party affiliation may have been incorrect on the first mailing however polling site information is correct. We take responsibility for that. As soon as it was discovered we moved immediately to remedy the situation,” the statement said.
“This is an isolated event, but we apologize for our mistake, especially to Nassau County officials, who bear no responsibility for this problem. We have fixed the error and at no cost to taxpayers will deliver corrected Voter Information Cards as soon as possible,” the statement said.
But the damage is done.
“That’s neglect, a company that’s sending out an important document like that? That’s not good,” Mineola resident Amura Dillon said.
Republican George Klein was irate, according to WNBC.
“I have no faith in this country today, as far as what the politics are. I’m going to vote Republican primary day, and Democrat on that is not going to affect it,” he said.
“It certainly seems to be inadvertent but feeds also public criticism about government officials — whether it’s competency, paranoia,” said Lawrence Levy who is the Executive Dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, according to WNYW-TV.
Blakeman shunned any talk that the mistake was intentional, according to the New York Post.
“I don’t think the Democratic Party is engaged in a conspiracy to create havoc in their own primaries,” he said.
“I don’t think the Democratic Party wants a bunch of Republicans showing up to vote in their primaries,” he said.
