Monroe County’s elections commissioners are defending the job they did in Tuesday’s primary election, which was marked by long lines, lack of social distancing in some polling places, and cases of voters being handed the wrong forms.
Republican Commissioner Lisa Nicolay and interim Democratic Commissioner Lashana Boose said most of the problems resulted from the forced consolidation of 190 polling places down to 30 due to the coronavirus. Three elections were compressed into a single one. Schools and nursing homes plus some other locations were denied to the board because of the pandemic. Long lines were often the result of needing to frequently sanitize the polling places and equipment. They said these were unprecedented challenges.
The commissioners also say there are about 90,000 absentee ballots to be processed, which is about five times the normal amount, again due to the coronavirus.
Boose says the margin of error appears to fall within the boundaries allowed by state election law, although she understands people are upset with the errors.