New York City Board of Elections has said all residents at Tracey Towers can finally vote at the Tracey Towers polling site (located onsite in the community room) in the upcoming primary election on June 28, bringing relief to some senior residents who had not relished the prospect of having to travel further afield to cast their ballots. However, the precise reason for the poll site change, which came within weeks of Election Day and before a subsequent reversal of the decision, remained unclear until Wednesday, June 15.

 

Sallie Caldwell, a Tracey Towers resident, told Norwood News on Tuesday, June 7, that she and other residents at the Jerome Avenue Mitchel Lama housing complex had received their voting cards for the upcoming June 28 election on Monday, June 6, along with instructions to vote at either the Scott Tower voting center, located at 3400 Paul Avenue in Jerome Park, or at the Montefiore Mosholu Community Center, located on 3450 DeKalb Avenue in Norwood. This was despite the fact that there is a voting center onsite at Tracey Towers itself, located at 40 West Mosholu Parkway South. 

 

“We always voted in Tracey Towers,” Caldwell, who is a senior resident, said on June 7. “Starting this week, we’ve been getting cards. You know how they send the cards out to vote, and telling people, some people got to go to Scott Towers, some have to go to the Montefiore center over there, and the rest of them come in Tracey Towers. Now before, I have voted in Tracey Towers, but yet, you’re asking the rest of us to go to Scott Towers and Montefiore center?”

 

Caldwell added, “Now, we were notified of redistricting but ain’t nobody notified us that half us, seniors, here would have to travel to vote.” Asked if she knew who had made the decision, she replied, “I don’t know. That’s what I’ve been trying to find out. I spoke to a supervisor at the Board of Elections (BOE), his first name is Steve. He’s supposed to be getting back to me. I guess he’ll get back to me today because when he went on there [the BOE database], he saw that some of us [were] going to Scott Tower to vote.”

 

Caldwell said Steve appeared surprised by the issue, and said he would investigate and get back to her. He reportedly added, without disclosing any voter names, that indeed he could see that other people in Caldwell’s building were also listed to vote at Scott Tower voting center.

 

“Now, the young lady who is in charge of the building at Tracey, she called, and she found out that there will still be voting inside of Tracey on the first floor,” Caldwell added. She was referring to Beverly Miller who she said coordinates the voting center at Tracey Towers, and who reportedly told her she had not been notified that the building’s voting residents were to be split up, and reportedly said to Caldwell, “Are you serious?”

 

Caldwell then added, “Now, this morning [June 7], I got called where a lot of people told me they were going to go to Scott Tower or Montefiore center. Now, if you’re doing that, the majority of the people that they’re pulling out and going to Scott Tower and these places are seniors!”

 

She said to get to Scott Tower was feasible but not convenient. “I either get a cab or wait a half an hour for a bus or try to walk,” Caldwell said, adding that if voters wanted to vote early, they would still have to walk over to Scott Tower or Montefiore community center to do so, as early voting was not provided at Tracey Towers.

She continued, in part, “They had it one time, I remember,” she said, adding that now, the building really has mostly retirees and seniors.  “They [other residents] don’t want to do the voting because we went down in the voting rights also, because we have a whole lot of people in this building who [are] not…they cannot vote, because they’re not citizens, so that takes the whole voting thing from us,” she said.

 

“I don’t know if this is the reason why they’re taking.. I don’t know why…..but to me, it seems like, they are taking the people who can vote out of the building, and leaving the building with a percentage [inaudible] that’s not much…. because they know there are a lot of immigrants here who can’t vote,” she added.

 

Caldwell said most of the people she talked to about the matter were seniors. “Not that we can’t get around, but if this is going to be something permanent, then let us know!” she said. “This way, even if we have to do it, we can make arrangements. We start voting and I know we don’t vote that often, what if we wake up on the [28th] and it’s pouring down raining? How are we going down to Scott Tower? We’re not going to walk, and we’re not going to stand there if it’s raining!”

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Caldwell went on to say that some Tracey Towers residents had not received their voting card by June 7, but she assumed that this was because the cards were sent out in alphabetical order. She said many had received them and that about 10 people called her to query the change, reportedly saying, “You’re not the only one. I don’t understand this!”

 

Norwood News received a similar confirmation from another Tracey Towers resident who preferred not to disclose their name. Caldwell said she also contacted Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (A.D. 81) about the issue who, she said, was also reportedly surprised to learn of it, and reportedly said he would look into it and get back to her.

 

Norwood News contacted the Bronx office of NYC BOE the same day [June 7] to ask what was the reason for the decision. We did not receive an immediate response. On Friday, June 10, District 11 City Councilman Eric Dinowitz, in whose district Tracey Towers falls, shared the attached notice, and explained that as a result of the redistricting process, the Board of Elections had initially changed the voting process whereby some Tracey Towers voters were scheduled to no longer vote on site and were listed to go to an alternate voting center.

 

“However, after closely addressing this situation with the NYCBOE, the residents of Building 20 will not have to go to a different polling location for these upcoming primary elections and will be able to keep voting in their community room,” the councilman wrote, adding that “voting must be easy and accessible.”

 

He continued, in part, saying, “Polling location changes mere weeks before an election has become commonplace in our city, and it causes unnecessary confusion. Nothing should impede New Yorkers’ right to vote.”

 

Upon receipt of the notice on Friday from the councilman’s office, Norwood News followed up once more with the BOE to ask why the change had been made, since the redistricting of the assembly districts did not impact Tracey Towers. The housing complex still falls, in its entirety, into Assembly District 80, represented by Assemblywoman Nathalia Fernandez. We did not receive an immediate response but will update this story upon receipt of any feedback from BOE.

 

Another Tracey Towers resident we spoke to said she had recently received a notice from Jean Hill, president of the Tracey Towers Tenants Organization, which read, To All Residents of Building 20, voting for the 6/28 primary: you will vote here at Tracey Towers. Do not go to Scott Towers.”

 

Hill also told Norwood News, “The minute I received my card in the mail telling me to vote at Scott Towers, I contacted several of our elected officials to get it corrected. Tracey Towers has been a polling site for over 40 years and they split the building in half. Residents in Building 20 only were required to vote at Scott Towers. Tenants in Building 40 would vote at their regular polling place in Building 40. Fortunately we were able to get this corrected.”

Unlike the congressional and State senate districts, the assembly districts approved by the State legislature in early February 2022 were not later made subject to revision by a court-appointed special master in May, because of a legal challenge, and the assembly district maps approved in February will remain in place for the upcoming primaries in June and for the general elections in November.

 

However, it was also confirmed on Friday, June 10, that a new court ruling, brought about due to a separate legal challenge, has now decided that the assembly district maps approved in February 2022 are finally invalid “based on procedural infirmity,” according to court documents, and therefore, new assembly district maps will finally be redrawn by a court-appointed special master in time for the following elections in 2024. The petitioner of the challenge on this occasion was Paul Nichols et al.

 

On Monday, June 13, Vincent Ignizio, deputy executive director at the Board of Elections, responded to our inquiries regarding the sudden change of polling site at Tracey Towers, saying, in part, “With the redistricting, the board had to create new election districts and poll site assignments.”

We responded, confirming, once again, that the Tracey Towers location, itself, had not been affected by redistricting this year since it was, and remains in Assembly District 80. We asked once again therefore what the reason was for the change of polling site. Ignizio responded saying, “All Assembly Districts and Election Districts were altered this year due to redistricting. They will be altered again in 2024 due to the Courts finding Assembly District lines unconstitutional as well. Tracy Towers will be an active polling site this year for all 3 elections (2 primaries and the General).”

 

We responded, explaining that following the decision by the courts on or about April 29, it was known that the assembly districts were not due to be [further] amended this year [following the approval of the State legislature assembly district maps in February 2022] in respect of the 2022 primary elections, and that the April court ruling had been in respect of the State senate and congressional districts only.

 

Also, as above, the assembly district maps approved by the legislature in February 2022 did not impact upon Tracey Towers, which remains in A.D. 80. The Tracey Towers residents received the notice about the change of polling site for the upcoming assembly district primaries on or about June 6, at which time it was known there was no redistricting impact [this year] on Tracey Towers.

It wasn’t until June 10 that a further court ruling announced that finally the assembly districts would indeed be amended as well, but only in 2024, so again, no impact for the upcoming 2022 June primaries. We therefore asked again why a notice was sent out regarding a change of polling site at Tracey Towers a few weeks before the assembly district primaries, even if that decision regarding the polling sites has since been reversed.

 

Ignizio has since responded again, saying in part, “It seems to have come down to a clerical error in that someone mistakenly inputted and linked the ED/voters to the wrong poll site when they were during the redistricting process. This error only affected their election day site – not early voting. More importantly, it has been fixed.” He added, “The new notice was completed and will be distributed today. They’ll get them within the following 24 to 48 hours.”

 

For more information on the latest voting guide for the upcoming primaries, click here.