Judge Rejects Move To Block Translators From NYC Polls

BROOKLYN, NY — A state judge rejected the city Board of Elections's effort to keep city-trained translators out of polling places on Monday, paving the way for the workers to set up shop during Tuesday's special election for public advocate.

The board filed a lawsuit Friday in Brooklyn Supreme Court to stop the city from stationing translators inside dozens of poll sites to aid voters who speak Russian, Yiddish, Haitian Creole and Polish.

At a Monday hearing, a lawyer for the board argued in part that the translators should stay more than 100 feet outside the poll sites to maintain a "quiet" and "orderly" environment for voters.

But Justice Edgar G. Walker ruled that the board lacked enough evidence to show the translators would disrupt Tuesday's election activities. The board's lawyer even acknowledged that there was "no reason to believe" the workers would engage in improper electioneering, Walker said.

"Speculative claims regarding possible harm or that allowing the interpreters at the polling place might lead down a 'slippery slope' are insufficient to establish immediate irreparable harm," Walker wrote in his decision.

The ruling marked a victory for Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration in its battle with the Board of Elections, which is overseen by 10 Democratic and Republican commissioners.

But the board's lawyer, Lawrence Mandelker, planned to immediately appeal Walker's ruling on Monday afternoon. The decision also did not address the merits of the board's lawsuit, only its motion for a preliminary injunction.

Federal law requires the Board of Elections to provide interpreters for voters speaking Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and Bangla (also known as Bengali). The city started a pilot program in 2017 to offer translations in more languages.

The de Blasio administration wants to place translators inside poll sites for the first time during Tuesday’s special election for public advocate, according to a court filing, meaning voters would not have to flag one down outside. The plan was to offer translations in Russian at 40 poll sites; in Haitian Creole at five sites; in Yiddish at two sites; and in Polish at one.

State law bans “electioneering” within 100 feet of a polling site. The city argues that the translation services aren’t electioneering because its project has no position on any candidate, party or ballot issue.

In the Board of Elections’s view, letting the translators in would create a slippery slope that would allow any other concerned group to occupy polling places, Mandelker argued.

“If we as a board can’t exclude the city interpreters from setting up within the 101 feet, how can we exclude anybody else?” Mandelker said in court. “Either we have the ability to decide who gets in, according to the statute, or we don’t.”

Mandelker acknowledged in court that the translators’ past activity was not electioneering. But the city government that’s providing the service is “inherently partisan,” he argued.

But politicians and advocates — including the de Blasio administration — said the board was needlessly trying to block a vital service for the millions of New Yorkers who speak a language other than English.

“We had Jim Crow right here in the North and what this is today is a return to those days,” said state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn Democrat who chairs the Senate’s elections committee.

At a Monday morning hearing, Walker noted from the bench that some poll sites host other activities that don't compromise elections. The judge said he was even once hit by an errant basketball at his polling place in Park Slope.

"I don't see how that this is going to exacerbate what already goes on," Walker said. "... There are lunchrooms where this stuff is going on, some of your polling sites, other gymnasiums in schools where there's a portion of the gym that's set aside."

The Board of Elections and city officials also came to blows after jammed ballot scanners caused widespread chaos at the polls during November’s midterm election.

De Blasio, a Democrat, said then that the board’s executive director, Michael Ryan, should leave his post if he wasn’t willing to make reforms at the agency.