NEW YORK —
Names mistakenly purged from voter rolls. Long lines at polling places. Equipment breakdowns. Absentee ballots with the wrong voter’s name. And now a blunder in tallying mayoral primary votes.
The troubled record of New York City’s Board of Elections has provoked outcries from elected leaders for years. Despite longstanding agreement on the need for changes, little has been done.
This week the board added another ignominious example when it mistakenly added 135,000 test ballots to preliminary vote counts in the Democratic primary for mayor. The error prompted new calls to reform the century-old board, a relic from the days of Tammany Hall, and optimism that this time might be different.