Election Alert: NY State AFL-CIO: Your LOCAL Vote Will Count in Disaster Districts

TWU Local 100 is advising our members who live in counties affected by Hurricane Sandy (and that means most of us) to vote for local officials by writing in their names on affidavit ballots, if they are not able to vote in their regular polling locations. Alex Voetsch, Executive Director of the New York Democratic Lawyers Council, notes that "ANY resident of the counties described in the Governor's Executive Order (New York City, Suffolk, Nassau, Westchester, and Rockland) can vote by affidavit ballot in a poll site that is not their own.  The damage to their own homes or specific neighborhoods is not a factor in their eligibility to use this procedure. They just need to live in one of those counties."
http://www.governor.ny.gov/executiveorder/62

We believe that a voter using this procedure should vote for the President, Statewide office, and ALSO write in any of their local races that are not on their affidavit ballot.  No poll worker or offical has the legal right to stop someone from writing in a candidate, and we believe that these votes will be counted back in the district where the voter lives.

-- Marvin Holland, Political Director, TWU Local 100