The New York primary offers up 24/7 democratic delegates and 95 republican delegates for the presidential election. Many of the candidates had something riding on this election. For Bernie Sanders, this was a chance to catch up to Hillary Clinton's lead. Before this primary, Sanders had won 16 primaries and Clinton had won 19; New York marking her twentieth primary win. With Clinton leading by over 600 delegates, Sanders needed as many delegates as he could get to shorten her lead on him. However, Sanders knew that Clinton was still the predicted winner and that he faced a large feat. Even though it is Sanders who can call New York home.
Clinton was looking to prove herself in a state that she represented in the Senate. Clinton served as Senator of New York from 2001 to 2009. During her time as Senator, she sponsored three bills that made it all the way to laws. She also credits herself with helping secure funds after 9/11 and sponsoring many financial bills. A significant amount of her sponsorships over the years have come from finance companies. Many have critiqued her for these claims, stating that she did not even sponsor a quarter of the financial bills while in office and that the money after 9/11 was not necessarily due to her. Nevertheless, she still expected a victory in New York… and a victory was what she received.
Trump is not unlike Sanders in the fact that he was born and raised in New York. Sanders was born in Brooklyn and Trump in Queens. New York is the location of Trump Tower and many other buildings that Trump owns. Essentially, it is the location of the Trump Empire. With his substantial previous winnings, it was no shock that he should win the Republican primary in New York as well.
However, it is what was determined after the primary that is so interesting. Let us start with the fact that New York is a closed primary. Which means that you can only vote in the primary for which you are registered. Therefore, if you are registered as a democrat, then you can only vote in the democratic primary. There have been notions in the past to change it so that more people will be able to vote in the primary they choose. However, some people believe that the deadline to change your party affiliation is enough.
This caused a slight problem in this year's New York primary. Many people showed up to the polling places on Tuesday, April 19th, to find that they were registered as something different than what they had actually registered for. Thousands of people found out that someone had forged their signatures on registration papers for another party primary. Some of these voters are said to have been people who would have voted for Sanders. Other faults included polling places that opened late or polling places where the voting machines were not working. These are just some of the problems that plagued Tuesday's primary.
In the wake of these issues, we must ask ourselves this question, "Why are we making it so hard for people in this country to vote?" If voting is a constitutional right, then it should be easy.
