By Eric W. Schoen
I have voted in elections since I turned 18 in 1978. Dad died three days before Election Day. We were still sitting shiva but I knew that no matter the circumstances dad would have wanted me to vote.
I supported Richard Ottinger for re-election to Congress. That’s a name not too many of you are familiar with. Richard was a powerful Congressperson, and I’ll never forget the beautiful note Richard wrote to me when my dad died. The letter was handwritten, and it was so meaningful to me that a giant in Congress would send a handwritten letter to an 18 year old voting in his first election who had suddenly lost his father.
So let’s just say I have voted in 42 elections and countless primaries over the years. I have never observed a disgraceful election as I observed on Primary Day this year at Yonkers Middle High School.
Don’t blame it on social distancing. Don’t blame it on the pandemic. Don’t blame it on making sure voting sites were handicapped accessible. And for once, this was not a case of just the the poor people in South Yonkers getting mistreated. As I would learn the day after the Primary from County Executive George Latimer, the people at a polling location in Mamaroneck also got shafted.
This was a case of incompetent people being led by incompetent supervisors. Simple. 300 people waiting in the hot sun for 2-3 hours to vote on Primary Day. I got to the school just by chance going through from South Yonkers to my apartment. Folks sitting in beach chairs. Parents with kids in tow wanting out. Senior citizens leaning on the hot school walls with no place to sit. No Water. No food.
And all they had to do was let the people wait inside the comfortably air conditioned school. This is not rocket science.
I tried to find out who was in charge of this mess and fortunately an old high school classmate pointed her out to me. I asked her if she had alerted the Board of Elections a to what was going on. Senator Shelly Mayor graciously provided the election workers with pizza. I got no answer from the Supervisor.
I called Reginald Lafayette, Democratic Board of Elections Commissioner. He told me he would send someone down to the site to see what could be done. Some man in a county car showed up. He told me he had never seen anything like this all day in Westchester. He called another man who i later learned was the Democratic Official in charge of Voting Site selection.
He seemed reasonable. We thought the gym was air conditioned and the 300+ people could wait there. There was construction going on so that was out of the question. Next we looked at the auditorium. I played Officer Krupke in the 1978 Yonkers High School production of West Side Story in that auditorium, so let’s just say I know the facility. The Board of Elections Site guy was afraid that people would cut the line and not socially distance. When I heard that I knew the games were beginning. He said it wasn’t fully handicapped accessible.
Third solution: line the people in the hallways. 300 people could have been in air conditioned comfort. The Site guy was on the phone with Lafayette and a host of others. Lafayette and the Site guy killed a simple plan to make people comfortable during their 2-3 hour wait. It was close to 11 p.m. when voting finished at the polling site.
Lafayette blamed the mess on the County Board of Legislators refusal to buy more machines for the Voting. Oh my, I forgot to tell you the County Legislator Jose Alvarado was waiting on the line. He told me Lafayette was incorrect.
300 people waiting in the hot sun to vote? To vote on two machines. This should Not occur in 2020. This should never occur in a civilized society. Reginald Lafayette and his assistants couldn’t give a dam for the public, the people who pay their salaries.
Are we to expect this nonsense for the General Election in November. I sent a letter to the County Executive the day after the Primary calling for a committee to review the Primary debacle and plan for November. Lafayette yelled at me that neither the County Executive nor the County Legislature could set up such committee.
As we went to press they did. Granted I would like to have seen members of the public on the Commission but I’ll take County Legislators. We can’t have this chaos in November.
After Lafayette killed the plan to make people comfortable, I went up and down the voter line telling those waiting the whole miserable saga. And who was responsible. Give them credit, the people on line were patient and simply wanted their right to vote.
Some of the other stories that the powers that be brought up are people could vote in advance or by mail. This is true, but if you are going to allow people to vote by machine either you better be prepared or change the laws to allow mail voting and early voting only.
This country is going through difficult times. When we have a simple situation like this those in charge have to go the extra mile to make think not about themselves but of others. If they can’t do the job resign.
In this situation Black, Brown, White and Yellow lives, in fact all lives matter. Make sure to vote on Election Day. If anyone gives you a hard time don’t let them turn you away. Just pull out articles 14 and 15 of the constitution! And request a paper. No one can take your right to vote away from you!
Reach Eric Schoen at thistooisyonkers@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @ericyonkers. Listen to Eric Schoen and Dan Murphy on the Westchester Rising Radio Show Thursday’s from 10-11 a.m. On WVOX 1460 AM, go to WVOX.com and click the arrow to listen to the live stream or download the WVOX app from the App Store free of charge.
