An upstate printer has once again screwed up downstate election materials, this time by mailing registration cards to Nassau County’s nearly million voters — identifying them all as Democrats.
“It’s a terrible error. People are upset. People are angry. There is a lot of confusion,” GOP County Executive Bruce Blakeman seethed at a Tuesday press conference.
Democrats make up about 40 percent of the county’s 972,000 voters, according to state Board of Election records from February.
Blakeman ruled out partisanship as a likely cause of the mistake but said the county is investigating what did happen.
This week’s flub by the Rochester-based Phoenix Graphics comes two years after the company messed up absentee ballots for 100,000 Brooklynites shortly before the 2020 election, prompting outrage from voters concerned about whether their votes would count. The mistake extended into Nassau County as well, where nearly 800 people also received botched ballots.
Phoenix will now pay the roughly $300,000 needed to resend a correct registration card to every Nassau voter, Democratic County Election Commissioner Jim Scheuerman told The Post.
“This is exactly what I wake up for every morning,” Scheuerman said with sarcasm, referring to the debacle.
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A Phoenix spokesman, asked by The Post why public agencies should ever trust the company again, said in a statement, “Phoenix Graphics has competently and capably served millions of voters across the United States mistake-free, but if a mistake does occur, Phoenix Graphics acknowledges it and makes it right at no cost to taxpayers or to the integrity of the democratic process.”
The company said it at least got the polling-site information correct on the cards, while blaming “human error” for the recent “isolated incident.”
“As soon as it was discovered we moved immediately to remedy the situation. … We apologize for our mistake, especially to Nassau County officials, who bear no responsibility for this problem,” reads the statement.
New registration cards are expected to land in Nassau mailboxes by the end of the week, according to the county’s Board of Elections.
Blakeman said of the county’s probe into the mistake, “I don’t think the Democratic Party is engaged in a conspiracy to create havoc in their own primaries.
“I don’t think the Democratic Party wants a bunch of Republicans showing up to vote in their primaries.”
