NYC Board of Elections takes down video featuring Cuomo vote
The city Board of Elections has taken down a video that showed voters how to cast a ballot — by marking a spot for Gov. Andrew Cuomo — after The Post posted a story about the spot on Monday.
The 55-second video featured images of the two-page ballot, with a darkened oval mark over Cuomo’s name.
But a link to the site of the video has been deleted with the message, “Video unavailable. This video has been removed by the user.”
The board acted after GOP gubernatorial candidate Marc Molinaro and other Republican officials said it smacked of favoritism.
“I definitely have a problem with it. I find it hard to believe that a bipartisan agency would let a tape out that shows a sample ballot filled in with votes for one party’s candidate or another,” said Michael Rendino, the Bronx Republican Party chairman and a former elections board commissioner.
One state senator even called for the state Board of Elections to intervene.
“We will not let Mayor de Blasio, Andrew Cuomo or anyone steal this election,” said state Senate Elections Committee Chairman Fred Akshar (R-Binghamton).
“This appears to be a deliberate effort by someone or a group of individuals at the NYC BOE to influence the election to help Andrew Cuomo and Democrats to take over the state.”
Frederick Umane, the Republican elections board commissioner from Manhattan, said the elections agency goofed by using the names of real candidates
“This was done to make it easier to show voters how to separate the ballot and vote. It should not have been a real ballot,” Umane said.
“They should have had the names Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck to avoid any controversy.”
Other than showing a vote for Cuomo, the ballot in the instructional video — posted online Saturday — also carried marks for multiple candidates in several races.
If a voter marked several candidates in a single race, that ballot would be tossed out.
The BOE declined comment.
Molinaro first became aware of the problem when a whistleblower noticed the politically problematic snafus and alerted his campaign via his “Cuomo Leaks” website for anti-corruption tipsters.
sauce: https://nypost.com/2018/11/05/nyc-board-of-elections-takes-down-video-featuring-cuomo-vote/