Nassau Board of Elections reissues registration cards with correct party affiliation after error roils voters

The Nassau County Board of Elections is reissuing voter registration cards after a vendor mistakenly sent cards to all 976,000 registered voters listing them as Democrats.

The cards were caused by a printing error by Rochester-based Phoenix Graphics, said Nassau County Democratic Commissioner James Scheuerman.

The actual party affiliation of voters was not changed, but every voter, including about 500,000 voters who are registered with other parties, such as Republican, Conservative, Green Party, Working Families or blank, were listed as Democrats.

The vendor is reissuing cards to all voters who received a registration card.

The cards will have the correct party registration, an explanation of the printing error and polling place information. The cards are being issued at no expense to the county, Scheuerman said.

“This was an error on an outside document that in no way affected registration with the Board of Elections,” Scheuerman said.

Republican Elections Commissioner Joseph Kearney declined to comment Tuesday.

The registration cards are required by the state to be sent out annually every spring to remind voters of their polling places, Scheuerman said. The listed party affiliation was the only error on the card, Scheuerman said.

Phoenix Graphics said in a statement they had made a "human error" on the cards.

"The voters’ party affiliation may have been incorrect on the first mailing however polling site information is correct. We take responsibility for that. As soon as it was discovered we moved immediately to remedy the situation," the statement said.

"This is an isolated event, but we apologize for our mistake, especially to Nassau County officials, who bear no responsibility for this problem. We have fixed the error and at no cost to taxpayers will deliver corrected Voter Information Cards as soon as possible," the statement said.

Since 1999, Phoenix Graphics has contributed about $136,000 to political campaigns, mostly through county-level committees, according to the state Board of Elections. More than $99,000 of that went to Republican candidates and committees or Conservative Party committees.

Nassau County previously had to reissue 800 absentee ballots printed by Phoenix Graphics in 2020 because they listed incorrect names and addresses on return “oath” envelopes to the Board of Elections.

The company also had to replace 100,000 absentee ballots in New York City that listed the wrong names in 2020.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said the county has been told the cards will be fixed after he said the county office were flooded with concerned calls.

“In this circumstance, everybody was identified as a Democrat, so obviously you can imagine that people who were Republicans or another party were concerned their registration was changed by someone else. We don’t believe this is the case. We believe this is an error by the mailing house,” Blakeman said.

 “We have been assured that more than 900,000 registered voters in Nassau County will get the correct card and an explanation how the error occurred.”

With Yancey Roy

By John Asbury

john.asbury@newsday.comJohnAsbury

John Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.