With a Flier Like This, How Many People Do They Expect to Vote?

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Good old Newburgh Democratic Committee (I’m guessing they’re responsible for this) strikes again: Today was the last day to vote in the primary for our new Congressional District, NY-18. At my usual polling place, South Middle School, I went around back. It was there, during the Early COVID Period, that we started having to enter through the gymnasium doors to vote, instead of the doors we had always previously used — the front doors, facing Monument Street.

Doors locked! No one home! i peered; i knocked. Silence and darkness inside! No sign at all was on the gym doors. Did i have the wrong day? No; impossible. A former City Council member, i don’t know much, but i know how, where and when to vote. Or at least, i thought i did.

Annoyed, i went around to the front of the school, thinking that voting was now back in its “regular” place — the hallway just off the school’s Monument Street parking lot. But again, i found the building dark and all the doors locked. NOW, WHAT THE … ???

Then i noticed a single, yellow sheet of paper, taped to a window pane. I attach a photo of it here, as i find it to be a classic of its kind (that kind being, “Screwed-Up Newburgh Communications.”) A few questions about this flier:

  1. Could they make the “headline” any smaller? “POLLING PLACE CHANGE” should fill the entire sheet, left to right, no? i ask you.

  2. What are the words, “CITY OF NEWBURGH” doing there? The City of Newburgh has nothing to do with this … or if it does, it’s for some “Inside-Baseball” reason that no one cares about. And look: They used a new typeface, too! Someone must have been having some fun with this.

  3. In the fourth and fifth lines, we finally get to a sentence* that seems as if it’s going to be important: “Your polling place has been changed for only the … “ and then, right there in the middle of the sentene, they switch to Spanish.

  4. OK, so, “only the” WHAT? Only the “second time in history,” maybe? In tiny type, the next line reveals the finale of this cliff-hanger: “August 23, 2022, Primary Elections.” Except there’s no period at the end, so it’s not really a “sentence” (see #3 above). Does no one around here know an English teacher, or a good 6th-grader, who could proofread this stuff?

  5. Yay! Now we know that our polling place has been changed. But we had kind of figured that out when we found all the doors locked. The question remains: WHERE DO WE GO TO VOTE? Over the next three lines, they give an address. It would have been nice to precede that address with a few words to the effect: “TO VOTE TODAY, GO TO…” Instead, they just left that address hanging out there, in the middle of the page. (Nice big type, though!) WHY, OH WHY, couldn’t they just print a flier with these words in huge type:

    TO VOTE TODAY, GO TO 401 WASHINGTON STREET.”

  6. They then took three more lines to tell us that we won’t have to go to 401 Washington Street to vote anymore, after today. Again, there’s no period after that three-line “sentence.” (The Spanish version beneath it has one, though!) Anyway, to all those who took a cab to South Middle School to vote today: i pray you didn’t dismiss the driver before you read the sign on the door.

    PS: Are you wondering why the voting location was changed? Me too.

Here’s the one and only sign at South Middle School tellng us where to vote today. Note the glare, which added to the fun!