Brooklyn residents head to the polls to cast their votes in the Primary Election

For poll workers at Fort Hamilton High School in Bay Ridge, there was a slow, but steady stream of voters early Tuesday morning. Booths were never even close to full, per a Brooklyn Paper photographer on the scene, but the people were making their way in to make their voices heard.

While things ran smoothly at Fort Hamilton, other polling sites across the borough had rockier starts.

“I wake up at 6:30 which is a feat in itself,” said one voter who arrived at her polling place, PS/IS 180 in Borough Park, at 6:45 am — almost an hour after sites were supposed to open — only to be told to come back in 15-30 minutes. “A guy comes outside and says, are you here to vote? I say yes, and he says we’re not open yet, we got off to a late start.”

At John Ericsson Middle School near the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, polls didn’t open to the public until after 8:30 am.

“This needs to be solved now!!” tweeted local Democratic District Leader Kristina Naplatarski, who is also the communications director for borough president candidate Antonio Reynoso. “Voters are actively being disenfranchised.”

According to fellow District Leader Jesse Pierce, all standby poll workers were dispatched by 8 pm — but the local politico argued that the Board of Elections could have taken action much sooner to prevent delays.

“[BOE] could have flagged understaffing weeks ago,” Pierce tweeted, alleging that many poll workers assigned to sites had not taken the required refresher training and never confirmed availability ahead of Tuesday’s primary elections. “The alarm could’ve been raised. Instead, scramble.”

A ‘disheartening’ lack of translators

Some sites across the borough are reporting a lack of adequate voter translation services.

Councilmember Mark Treyger flagged Brooklyn Paper to a lack of such services in his southern Brooklyn district, which is home to a large Russian-speaking population.

“I remain very frustrated and disappointed that we don’t have more translation services,” said Treyger, who represents Coney Island, Brighton Beach and Seagate. “I have been pushing at the city level although we are limited by the state in terms of what we can require.”

The deficit was evident this morning, he said, at the Haber Houses in Coney Island, where the usual polling site was moved around the corner, leaving non-English speaking voters without translators in the dark.

“We don’t have any Russian interpreters by Haber Houses,” he said. “They moved it around the corner, and that requires translation so people know where to vote. It is very disappointing and disheartening.”