After a full week of heavy campaigning, debate and mishaps, the New York primary election has come to a close.
Donald Trump won the Republican vote in a landslide victory, with 60.5% of the total vote and 89 out of the 95 delegates. The only other Republican to score any delegates was John Kasich, who won only three delegates with 25.1% of the vote. Ted Cruz, who only got 14.5% of the vote, won no delegates, possibly due to his criticism of “New York values”. Notably, Kasich won the borough of Manhattan, Trump’s home field.
The Democratic race between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton was initially too close to call. However, with 57.9% of the vote, Clinton ultimately won with 139 out of the 247 total delegates. Not far behind, Sanders still pulled 42.1% of the vote, and won 106 delegates. Sanders won more individual counties over Clinton, including Albany County, home of the New York capital city Albany. However, Clinton’s victories came in larger stature, including sweeping all of New York City, Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester.
Trump and Clinton’s wins in New York seemingly puts them on track to win their nominations. However, controversy has risen over the New York primary process. Sanders commented that, “While I [Sanders] congratulate Secretary Clinton, I must say that I am really concerned about the conduct of the voting process in New York state, and I hope that that process will change in the future.” That “process” refers to New York’s closed primary system, in which registered voters must be affiliated with either the Republican or Democratic parties in order to vote solely for that party’s nominees. More controversial is that the party affiliation must have been done by Oct. 2015, six months prior, while voting registration must have been completed by late March. Many feel it hurt the election process because it does not allow independent voters to cast votes, which in particular hurts Sanders, who has a large independent following.
More importantly, over 125,000 voters in Brooklyn were reportedly erased from the voting list, and thus not allowed to cat a vote. Polling sites were also reported to have opened late, have broken machines, and incompetent poll workers who gave out wrong ballots, and tried to sway voters. Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Clinton supporter, said that, “It has been reported to us from voters and voting rights monitors that the voting lists in Brooklyn contain numerous errors, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks voters from the voting lists. The perception that numerous voters may have been disenfranchised undermines the integrity of the entire electoral process and must be fixed.”
In the mist of all these problems, it reported that New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer is going to audit the New York City Board of Elections. In it, Stringer hopes to fix all of the voting problems in New York City by the November general election, quoting with, “It’s time we clean up this mess.”
