Elected Officials Come Out to Ask For an Early Voting Site in Parkchester

Parkchester Assemblywoman Karines Reyes was joined by State Senator Luis Sepulveda, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, City Comptroller Scott Stringer, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, State Senator Jamaal Bailey, Harlem State Senator Brian Benjamin, and a few local community activists to call for an early voting site in the Parkchester community.

While the Board of Elections has increased the number of early voting sites in the Bronx from ten to sixteen, there remains no early voting site in the 87th Assembly District it was said. Reyes had written a letter to the Bronx BOE stating that on Primary day 2020 she had seen long lines of up to one-hundred people waiting outside at five of the six poll sites in Parkchester. She compared Parkchester to several housing complexes across the city including Coop-City which have their own early voting sites. 

Reyes added that she had worked out with the Parkchester Management Corporation to have a store that closed to be used rent free as an early voting site, but it seemed as though the Republican BOE commissioner was blocking the proposal. Senator Luis Sepulveda when he spoke, said that he talked to the Chair of the Bronx Republican Party, who said his commissioner would not object to the proposal. In my communication with the Bronx Republican Party Chair Michael Rendino later, he said that the list of early voting sites was already made public, and that the BOE was already informing voters of their early voting sites.

City Comptroller Scott Stringer answering my question about poor training of poll workers said that the BOE is a two party patronage system which needs to be dismantled, and a new system put in its place. Senator Benjamin said that early voting was the first bill passed, but that the legislature would have to clean the bill up. 

City Comptroller answering the question of poor training of poll workers by the BOE.

Congresswoman AOC speaking about the Voter’s Right’s Act.

State Senator Sepulveda speaking about his conversations with the Bronx Republican Party Chair who said he would not oppose the Reyes proposal.

Assemblywoman Reyes speaking about the reason for the additional early voting site in Parkchester.