DUTCHESS COUNTY – Governor Cuomo had ordered all school board and school budget votes to be conducted by mail-in ballots, also known as absentee ballots, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many school districts throughout the state contract with NTS Data Services in Niagara Falls for ballot printing and. The law requires ballots to be mailed to voters by June 3 and NTS announced they may not be able to meet that requirement this year.
Early last week, school districts were told by NTS that most ballots were set to be mailed to voters on Friday, May 29. Poughkeepsie School District Clerk passed that information along to the school board and the community during a streaming board meeting. On the day ballots were supposed to be mailed, NTS sent an email to their clients announcing a potential problem. The email said, in part “There is a significant supply issue with envelopes, very similar to what happened with toilet paper and hand sanitizer in recent months but on a commercial level. We were set to receive a delivery of millions of envelopes prior to the Memorial Day weekend that did not show up. We had prepared by printing all the components of the absentee ballot packs we had in stock including ballots for every school district. When the delayed trucks arrived on Wednesday (May 27), they were missing the bulk of the supplies that had been ordered 2 weeks prior. We spent the day triaging the situation and reaching out to State Assemblymen and Senators asking for help. We had a call with someone connected to the Governor’s office last night (May 28) in an attempt to resolve the issue. ”