1 in 4 Vote-by-Mail Ballots Disqualified in New York City Democrat Primary

(BREITBART) The New York City Board of Elections disqualified 84,208 vote-by-mail ballots — 26% of the total cast — in the June 23 Democratic presidential primary, according to a report cited Wednesday evening by the New York Post.

The NY Post reported:

The city BOE received 403,213 mail-in ballots for the June 23 Democratic presidential primary.

But the certified results released Wednesday revealed that only 318,995 mail-in ballots were counted.

That’s means 84,208 ballots were not counted or invalidated — 26 percent of the total.

One out of four mail-in ballots were disqualified for arriving late, lacking a postmark or failing to include a voter’s signature, or other defects.

Votes are still being counted from the June 23 primary, where several close elections were only decided weeks later.

Earlier on Wednesday, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) declared victory — more than six weeks later — over her primary challenger.

New York State encouraged voters to vote by mail rather than in person, citing the risk of coronavirus.

Nearly 2 million voters statewide requested mail-in ballots, and the system was overwhelmed, according to an earlier report by NBC-4 New York that described “a tidal wave of absentee ballots that overwhelmed a system which typically handles only around 5% of the vote,” and fears of “disenfranchisement.”

President Donald Trump reiterated his concerns Wednesday at a press briefing at the White House, where he said that states that did not have existing vote-by-mail systems ran the risk of irregularities that could delay the result of the presidential election from being known.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.