Elections

Election Day 2020: Polling sites in Manhattan not very crowded

Published

3 years ago

November 3, 2020

In the lead-up to Tuesday, Election Day, there were numerous reports of absurdly long lines at polling stations across New York City.

I had the opportunity today to explore Manhattan and visit some of its polling sites.

What I found was that, during the daytime, there were zero people waiting in line at nearly all the locations that I was able to visit, with the few exceptions only having two or three voters waiting in line. This, however, was very likely due to it being before 5pm, the time when people typically get off work and school, and the fact that New York was very aggressive in urging people to vote early.

My time being limited, the parts of town that I visited were Midtown East, the area south of Washington Square Park, the area north of WSP but south of Union Square, and then the edge of East Harlem and the Upper East Side. I recognize that the situation in these areas of the city may likely not reflect the situation in other parts of the city, especially the outer boroughs where the electorate is more racially diverse.

I let some time pass after 5pm to see if any long lines formed at polling stations. What I found baffled me.

At every single site I visited in the evening, there were zero voters in line. Every single one of them. When I inquired about the situation throughout all of today, they all had the same answer: There were extremely few voters that came.

When I asked why they thought fewer people showed up today, each of them came to the conclusion that so many New Yorkers chose to vote early. More likely than not, this titanic amount of early voters in New York took the pressure off of polling sites today, which isn’t the most far-fetched conclusion as theories go during this wacky election cycle.

You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.

Elections

Trump, Rep Biggs: invoking the Alien Enemies Act to enable widespread deportation will ‘be necessary’

Published

7 hours ago

September 22, 2023

Sara Carter Staff

At a recent rally in Iowa, former President Donald Trump promised that if elected again in 2024, he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act to enable widespread deportation of migrants who have illegally entered the United States. Since President Joe Biden took office in January of 2021, over 6 million people have illegally entered the country.

Republican Representative Andy Biggs from border state Arizona, which is among the states suffering the greatest consequences from the Biden administration policies, lamented that Trump’s suggestion will be “necessary.”

Speaking on the “Just the News, No Noise” television show, Biggs stated “[I]t’s actually gonna have to be necessary.” Biggs then added his thoughts on how many more people will continue to cross the border under Biden: “Because by the time Trump gets back in office, you will have had over 10 million, in my opinion, over 10 million illegal aliens cross our border and come into the country, under the Biden regime.”

“And so when you start deporting people, and removing them from this country, what that does is that disincentivizes the tens of thousands of people who are coming,” Biggs went on. “And by the way, everyday down in Darién Gap, which is in Panama… over 5,000 people a day. [I] talk[ed] to one of my sources from the gap today. And I will just tell you, those people that you’ve seen come come in to Eagle Pass, over 7,000 in a three day period, most of those two weeks ago, were down crossing into the Darién Gap.”

“And those people… make their way up and they end up in the Eagle Pass [Texas], Del Rio area,” he continued. “So if you want to disincentivize them, you remove them from the country, which is why they remain in Mexico policy was so doggone effective at slowing down illegal border crossings.”