Everyone's a Democrat in Nassau County

[George K]

Human Error Turns Every Registered Nassau County Voter Democrat

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A mistake listing every Nassau County registered voter as blue had many — especially Republicans — seeing red.

Many voters in the GOP-leaning Long Island county got their voter ID cards in the mail on Tuesday, and a half-million who got their cards saw a pretty glaring typo: All the cards say voters are registered Democrats, when in fact they might be Republican, independent or members of another political party.

And with the primary a month away, the mistake is sparking confusion.

"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," said Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

The cards were mailed out to let voters know about their polling location. But now the mistake has led to many unhappy people.

"There’s a lot of confusion, there’s a lot of people emotionally upset about this," said Blakeman.

So who is to blame? Blakeman pointed fingers at the printing company, Phoenix Graphics out of Rochester, which was hired by the county’s Board of Elections.

The printing company said it was a human error and is now apologizing. A spokesperson called it "an isolated event, but we apologize for our mistake, especially to Nassau County officials, who bear no responsibility for this problem."

For one registered Republican, the typo now has him questioning the election process.

"I have no faith in this country today, as far as what the politics are," said George Klein. "I’m going to vote Republican primary day, and Democrat on that is not going to affect it."

Phoenix Graphics said they are fixing the error at no cost to taxpayers. New corrected voter information cards will be sent out soon.

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Gotta wonder: How many of these voters never really checked their cards. If they throw away the corrected ones, thinking, "I already have mine", would they be able to vote in a GOP primary?

[Mik]

Not buying it. Printers print what they are sent.

[Jolly]

Silly boy! No such thing as deliberate errors in the Registrar's office....

[jon-nyc]

@Mik said in Everyone's a Democrat in Nassau County:

Not buying it. Printers print what they are sent.

Each card is unique so they would have been sent a blank template and a database (or a excel file, or whatever). Plenty of room for error after that.

[Mik]

It makes a lot more sense that they were sent a corrupt file. Don't get me wrong, I don't ascribe evil intent here. Just somebody screwed up. It's much more likely to happen in origination than printing.