How to Vote in the US Midterms in New York City: Polls Open Tuesday, 6 A.M. to 9 P.M.
It is the top search in America tonight. Here is the New York City version: your assigned poll site, the 9 p.m. line rule, the affidavit ballot, and the last day for a mail ballot.
The most-searched question in the United States tonight, in Google's trending snapshot, is 'how to vote in the us midterms.' In New York City the answer starts with a date and two times: Tuesday, November 3, with polls open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. There is no voting of any kind on Monday — early voting ended Sunday with 690,526 check-ins across the five boroughs — so for everyone who has not yet cast a ballot, Tuesday is the whole election.
Where you vote is assigned, and it may not be where you expect. You must vote at the poll site assigned to your home address, and that site can differ from the one where you voted early, and can change between elections. Check it before you leave, at findmypollsite.vote.nyc or vote.nyc, or by calling the Board of Elections at 866-VOTE-NYC. A Fast Pass tag speeds up check-in if you have one, but it is not required. Most New Yorkers need no identification at all to vote; only first-time voters who did not provide identification when they registered must show some — a photo ID, a utility bill, a bank statement or a similar document.
If something goes wrong at the table, the system has a paper answer, and its name is the affidavit ballot. Under the Board of Elections' own instructions, no one is to be turned away because their name is missing from the list at the correct poll site: you sign an affidavit envelope and cast a paper ballot, which is set aside to be verified and counted. The same route applies if you requested a mail ballot and then choose to vote in person instead. And the closing rule is absolute — any registered voter who is in line by 9 p.m. is entitled to vote, however long the line runs after that.
Mail ballots have their own last day, and it is Monday. November 2 is the final day to apply in person for a mail ballot at a Board of Elections borough office. A completed one must be postmarked by November 3 or — safer, at this hour — dropped off at an Election Day poll site or a Board office by 9 p.m. on Tuesday. What all of this decides, in New York: governor, attorney general and state comptroller; your member of Congress and your state legislators; and, on the back of the city ballot, five proposed amendments to the City Charter.
