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Primary hangover: Bernie got the most votes in Greenpoint, Bushwick and Dyker Heights

Bernie speaking in Transmitter Park earlier this month. Via Facebook.
Bernie speaking in Transmitter Park earlier this month. Via Facebook.

Greenpoint, you were truly feeling the Bern. The north Brooklyn neighborhood was where Bernie Sanders won the largest percentage of the vote in New York City during the statewide primary yesterday, with 64 percent voting for the Vermont senator over Hillary Clinton, according to this New York Times neighborhood by neighborhood breakdown. Sanders, as you know, lost to Clinton in the overall statewide primary, a heartbreaking defeat to supporters who had packed rallies in Prospect Park and Transmitter Park in the past few weeks hoping he could unseat the frontrunner.

The election was also plagued with major polling place problems, with 100,000 people mysteriously disappearing from the voter rolls. But get ready for hack analysts making trite jokes about Bernie’s supporters living in the “hipster corridor” or some dumb shit (like THIS): In addition to Greenpoint, Bernie also won part of Bushwick, East Williamsburg and Ridgewood just across the Queens border. Clinton barely beat Sanders in Williamsburg. Clinton’s No. 1 neighborhood in the city was the Upper East Side. 

Here’s the breakdown of where Sanders won in Brooklyn, according to WNYC:

Greenpoint: 63.8 percent

Ridgewood: 56 percent

Dyker Heights: 55 percent

Bushwick north: 53.8 percent (south Bushwick went for Clinton)

East Williamsburg: 51.6 percent

Greenpoint felt the Bern the hardest. Via WNYC.
Greenpoint felt the Bern the hardest. Via WNYC.

Most of the rest of Brooklyn went for Clinton, but Bernie had a heretofore unknown support in the beachfront areas of the city: Rockaway Park/Breezy Point, the coast of Staten Island, Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst.

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Via WNYC.
Via WNYC.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Trump won Williamsburg — and sure, it’s funny to joke about bros who moved from Murray Hill casting their ballots for a human condo building — but he only got 104 votes, out of about 250 Republican votes in the nabe in general. But if you saw a Trump fan at a beer hall somewhere in Berry Hill, we wouldn’t be too surprise.

Find out how your neighborhood and block voted here via the NY Times, and check the WNYC neighborhood breakdown here.

What about the voting fuck ups though? How is it we’ve been having elections for 200 years and EVERY SINGLE TIME it’s a disaster? If Apple releases a new iPhone with a slightly different font people lose their minds asking for them to fix it, but we still can’t figure out who is supposed to vote. WNYC broke the news this week that as many as 100,000 Democratic voters mysteriously disappeared from the voter rolls before the election. And yesterday’s primary day was rife with stories of voters showing up at the polls and being turned away, despite being registered.

“It’s the most disenfranchising thing ever,” a voter named Rebecca from Bushwick who called into WNYC said last night. She registered when she moved back to the city in August but wasn’t on the rolls when she went to vote for Bernie (she filed an affidavit ballot).

Here’s a story from one of our former contributors, who tried to vote with his wife yesterday:

Apparently, our polling place (North 5th, Williamsburg) here in Brooklyn lost our names. Mind you, this is the same polling place where we voted with no difficulty whatsoever two years ago. This time we had to fill out affidavit votes that “still counted,” but only after a “review.” I thought it might be because we moved, and didn’t re-register, but we did only move down the street (a one-block long street), and we figured that they’d still have us on record at that address. No dice. Also, the person in front of us had a similar problem. And after we finished filling out our votes, and handed them back, a guy was having the same problem. Two people in front of us, one guy behind us, we all got dropped from the roll.

[My wife] (who’s been voting at the same location — without incident — for 12 years) was extremely disappointed. She’s always been excited to vote, and this is the first time her vote actually counted toward deciding a presidential election. She doesn’t believe that her vote will be counted, and it’s hard to blame her. Who’s reviewing these affidavit votes? Are they going to do it by 10pm? It left a bad taste in her mouth.

Election officials say the missing voters wouldn’t have made a difference in the election outcome, so take that for what you will. But, whomever you support, if you are pissed that voting is so hard in 2016, remember that elections happen all the time, not just every four years. Stay on top of it and demand changes and maybe we’ll have a functional democracy one of these days.

Follow Tim, who votes Quimby: @timdonnelly.

One Response to

  1. Kevin

    Sometimes moving down the block in New York puts you in a totally different district. I moved a block in Williamsburg and was moved from the S2nd polling station to N5. Another friend didn’t move but her polling place was moved from S2 to Greenpoint. It’s unfortunate this happened to people, but it’s important to stay on top of your paperwork when you move and check your polling stations in advance.

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