New Yorkers who head to the polls on Nov. 6 will get a two-page, double-sided ballot. It's the first time there's been multiple-page ballots since New York switched to a paper system in 2010.
But in a silly snafu, the new ballot is already causing trouble. A batch of absentee ballots sent out to some New Yorkers were too big for the envelopes they go with.
"Obviously, the way that they were folded...no," they don't fit the envelopes, said Michael Ryan, executive director of New York City's Board of Elections. "We got them back from the vendor folded in three sections, they probably should have been folded in four sections and that matter will be remedied moving forward."
Scott Sommer, 57, said his 90-year-old mother received one of these ill-fitting ballots.
"I took it out to see if I had folded it wrong, but there's only one way to fold it," he said. "It didn't fit. It was too wide."
Not all of the absentee ballots that went out had this issue — some were folded into four parts and fit with no trouble. The Board of Elections didn't return a request for further comment on how many of the larger envelopes had gone out.
With a little creative pleating, Sommer's mother's ballot was ready to go.
"I put my Shirley Chisholm stamps on it and I mailed it today," he said.
