Find one Republican voting illegally and it would be front-page news.
Mary Woods, a real estate manager in Greenwich Village, is a Democrat in Manhattan, where there are six Democratic votes for every Republican.So Democrats get to double-dip and there's nothing you can do about it.
There, her ballot is a drop in a very blue bucket.
That was part of her recent decision to switch her registration to vote in a region where Republicans have a narrow enrollment advantage. She has a part-time home in Pine Plains, about 90 miles north of New York City.
"There's a gazillion people who vote like me in New York City," Woods said. "There's not so many up here."
These weekend and holiday upstaters may have helped seal a narrow win in March by newcomer Democrat Scott Murphy in the 20th Congressional District, a traditionally Republican and mostly rural district stretching from Dutchess County to near the Canadian border.
"Quite frankly, they're stealing my vote," said Joseph Mondello, chairman of the state Republican Committee and a Long Islander.
"It appears to me that their vote counts more than someone who has to vote where they live," said Christopher Callaghan, a Republican and former Saratoga County Treasurer who ran unsuccessfully for state comptroller in 2006.
Records show at least 153 New Yorkers actively registered in both New York City and at their upstate homes voted in the 20th Congressional District's special election in March, 76 percent of whom were enrolled Democrats, according to elections records obtained by The Associated Press. Nearly 250 more in the district are actively registered upstate and down, but didn't vote in that particular election.
It's illegal to be registered in two places at once, but the state Board of Elections said it probably happens because New York City boroughs are behind on eliminating voters from the city database after they switch their registration. The votes won't be thrown out and there aren't penalties to the voter.
Wonderful.
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