Voting Problems

Above is a picture, taken at 8:45 AM on June 24, of the entrance to the polling place at 101 South Pearl Street, Albany, New York, USA. I called the Albany County Board of Elections around 10 AM to report the first four problems described below.

Problem 1: I saw no sign from the street to indicate the existence of the polling place, which is located through the glass doors seen some distance beyond the top of the staircase in the picture. There is a sign at those doors that becomes legible after one climbs the staircase and walks toward them. There are at least two, quite large buildings in the South Mall Towers Complex, which was listed as my polling place. If I had been less determined to vote, the extreme heat and intense sunlight might have combined with the stealthy nature of the polling place and the "No Trespassing" sign at the base of the stairs to send me home discouraged. Perhaps there was another entrance, but it was not on the South Pearl Street side, which is where the address told me to head.

Problem 2: The bottom step of the pictured staircase has a much higher rise than the other steps. I am in good shape but stumbled noticeably after descending from the last step unaware of the issue. An infirm person could be seriously injured. The building houses senior apartments. How long has this dangerous situation existed?

Problem 3 (not pictured): The privacy shields supplied by the county for use when filling out ballots were skimpy. I felt my vote was exposed to a person who passed behind me.

Problem 4 (not pictured): The room used for polling had no sign outside, and the polling station was not visible from its door. This made me reluctant to enter and produced an awkward interval in which I explored the entire floor for a more welcoming room.

Problem 5 (not pictured): The ballot scanning machine was set up facing away from the privacy shields. This caused me another awkward moment trying to feed my ballot into the wrong end of the machine, before my mistake was pointed out by the poll workers. If possible, the scanning machine might be set up to provide privacy without a false cue concerning its business end.

The poll workers were wonderful. The person who answered the phone at the Albany County Board of Elections was also very helpful. I thank them all for their work.