New York Democratic presidential primary election canceled
Written by Site Hub on May 1, 2020
On Monday, April 27, representatives of the New York Board of Elections announced that they had canceled the Democratic primary election scheduled originally for April 28 and then June 23 to protect the health of voters. As they explained, they “struggled” with this decision, but they also felt it was the right one given the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Additionally, Senator Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign, which made former Vice President Joe Biden the presumptive candidate.
Backlash from Senator Sanders’ supporters occurred almost immediately after the announcement. Douglas A. Kellner, the Democratic co-chairman of the board, told The New York Times that the board has no plans to reverse course. Officials had already received many requests from the senator’s supporters to keep the June date before the board chose this option. Sanders’ campaign had also asked the board to continue forward with the vote for “party unity.”
As Kellner explained: “What the Sanders campaign wanted is essentially a beauty contest that, given the situation with the public health emergency, seems to be unnecessary and, indeed, frivolous.”
Some Democrats believe that vote by mail should have been the alternative solution to an in-person vote. As Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York’s 14th congressional district pointed out in a tweet: “It is completely wrong for the B.O.E. to cancel New York’s presidential primary… If N.Y. doesn’t want to risk possibly millions of people voting in-person, we need to mail everyone a ballot.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/us/politics/democratic-primary-canceled-coronavirus.html
