It’s Election Day 2020, with control of the Senate and the federal House of Representatives leading the ballot. Here in New York State, the ballot is topped by the gubernatorial race between Kathy Hochul and challenger Lee Zeldin.
If you want to cast your ballot on The Day, can someone try to keep you from the polling place or from actually casting your vote? The answers are yes and no. Under state law, there are designated poll watchers who can challenge. State Board of Elections PIO John Conklin says there are rules.
“Pollwatchers are appointed by either candidates or political party and those entities issue a specific poll watcher certificate. It's a credential. So, if you are a poll watcher and you show up at a poll, the poll workers should ask you for your credentials, to see it, to know that you are duly appointed and then you have a right to be in the poll site. So, again a poll watcher can challenge a voter for any reason.”
That’s different from some person trying to check your right to vote without poll watcher status. New York Civil Liberties Union Supervising Attorney Perry Grossman says some random person can’t walk up to a prospective voter and ask for a voter card.
“No. Somebody can’t say that to you. No. Number one, an official shouldn't say that to you. The only circumstances under which it's permissible for an official to say that to you is if you have just registered to vote. It’s your first time voting and you did not supply identification with your voter registration. Under those circumstances only, are you allowed to be asked at the polls. But, are people allowed to randomly ask you for identification, absolutely not in the polling place.”
Under state law, those candidate signs showing the polling place can’t be closer than 100 feet from that polling place. Conklin says that distance is important in deciding if someone is trying to keep a potential voter from getting to the polling place.
“If you're physically impeding voters from entering the poll site, whether you are beyond the 100 foot barrier or not, I think that's a reason to call law enforcement, whether it's the local PD or the sheriff to say these people are interfering with the voting process. That's different. If you are standing 120 feet from the entrance to the poll site with a sign that says: Vote for X, you're electioneering you're beyond the 100 foot barrier, so that's allowed.”
How about groups setting themselves up as election integrity inspectors, perhaps even with badges they make? That apparently happened recently in Chautauqua County and is under investigation. They had accurate voter registration information. Grossman says the elections system is in charge of that, not volunteers.
“We shouldn't be engaging in vigilante election integrity enforcement. It's likely to be illegal voter intimidation and there's no value-add to it. So, people should mostly be concerned about getting themselves registered to vote, getting to the polls, making sure other people turn out to vote and not so much worried about screening voters which is really the job of the boards of elections.”
As with every election, that screening starts when the polls open, this time at 6 a.m. on Tuesday.