BUSHWICK — Brooklyn Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez is calling on the Department of Justice to monitor polling sites in the 7th District that she represents, which includes some of the majority-Hispanic-majority most affected by the voter purge in April that left more than 125,000 voters unable to cast their ballots.
While all those voters were reinstated to the rolls earlier this month, Velazquez insisted that federal election monitors in her district would help prevent any further issues that may arise next Tuesday for the June 28 Congressional election. Monitors supervise and report on polling sites when concerns about minorities ability to vote emerge, according to the Department of Justice.
“Given the pervasive pattern of problems, it is difficult to have confidence that voters will not encounter other difficulties and barriers when heading to the polls next Tuesday,” Velázquez wrote in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch this week. “Assigning federal election monitors would help protect the most fundamental right of voters in my district on election day.”
In April's presidential primary, many New Yorkers struggled to cast ballots finding that their names had been removed from the voting roster. It later emerged that more than 125,000 eligible voters had been removed from voter logs in Brooklyn during a routine purge used to get rid of the names of people who had moved or died.
About 14 percent of voters in majority Hispanic districts election were taken off the roster, compared to with 8.7 percent of voters in other areas, WNYC found.
And 15.2 percent of people with Hispanic last names were purged taken off, compared with 9.5 percent of everyone else, meaning people with Hispanic last names were purged at a rate of 60 percent more often than the rest of the population.
"As a result of the sheer volume of purged voters in such a small area, it is imperative that the U.S. Department of Justice assign federal monitors at polling locations in the New York’s 7th congressional district, especially those located in heavily Hispanic areas," Vasquez wrote. "Doing so is necessary to protect New Yorkers’ right to vote."
Velazquez, the first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress when she took office in 1993, seeks reelection on the June 28 primaries. She faces off against two challengers Youngman Lee, a Chinatown banker and Jeff Kurzon a "Berniecrat."
Department of Justice spokesman David Jacobs said they had received Velazquez' request and are in the process of reviewing it.
