As hopeful voters lined polling stations for last Thursday’s New York Democratic Primary, a select few were surprised to encounter a major obstacle. Twitter flooded with reports of people showing up at the polls only to find that they either weren’t registered — despite having participated in a recent election — or weren’t affiliated with the Democratic party. Among the stunned voters, several of whom reported receiving Reform Party ballots instead, was NYU historian James Ryan, whose posts about the incident garnered significant attention. Ryan declined to comment further on the matter.

Peeved that my wife and I were nowhere to be found on the voting roll this AM in Wash Heights, despite not changing our registrations and voting recently as last year. Someone really didn’t want my vote for @CynthiaNixon and @ZephyrTeachout 😡
— James Ryan (@jdryan08) September 13, 2018

The New York City Board of Elections has not yet released an official number of affidavit ballots — ballots for voters whose registration status is under question — cast in the primary. However, the Twitter community posted numerous reports of being forced to vote affidavit even though they had participated in a recent election.

I should have but will before November. In any case, registering once and voting frequently should be enough to leave anyone secure in their registration status.
— James Ryan (@jdryan08) September 13, 2018

Issues with voting registration aside, New York state already suffers from low voter turnout. According to the Board of Elections 2016 report, voter turnout was at 13 percent for the 2016 state primary, which rings low compared to other big cities like Chicago. Voting problems during last week’s primary have fueled new debates on changing voter registration laws in New York, including expanding the availability, automatic voter registration and early voting. NYU Professor of Politics Steven Brams believes that this is less an issue of the fundamentals of the voting process and more of an administrative problem. “Making it easy to vote and to register, say by mail, rather than actually having to go to a polling place, [or] not supplying absentee ballots on time if someone is not going to be in town, those are administrative problems,” Brams said. Issues in New York City voting are not new. In 2017, the Board of Elections settled a lawsuit with Common Cause, a grassroots organization dedicated to democracy reform, alleging the city violated federal law by removing voters from registration lists because they hadn’t voted in previous elections. They were forced to review removals dating as early as July 1, 2013 and reinstate anyone unlawfully removed. As of yet, no litigation has been filed for last Thursday’s incident. “[We] will continue to monitor and investigate the situation, and if we do find that our settlement was violated, we will hold the [Board of Elections] accountable — making sure voters get the justice they deserve," Common Cause Executive Director Susan Lerner said in a statement. Email Kathryn Chapman at news@nyunews.com.