Clinton Takes Greater Flatbush; Kensington Stands With Sanders

Screenshot of map produced by the New York Times showing electoral districts in our area where the majority selected Hillary Clinton (blue) or Bernie Sanders (green).

Hillary Clinton’s decisive victory in the New York State Democratic presidential primary can clearly be seen in our area.

An interactive map created by the New York Times shows which candidate captured the majority of votes cast in each New York City electoral district. While Bernie Sanders was able to win majorities in Kensington, sections of greater Ditmas Park, and Midwood, the rest of our area is a sea of blue.

Indeed, East Flatbush-Farragut was one of the New York City electoral districts in which Clinton performed best, winning over three-quarters (77 percent) of Democratic votes cast.

Interestingly, Bernie Sanders actually won the majority of counties in New York State. But Hillary Clinton handily won the New York City metro area — with half of the state’s population — along with other major cities like Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.

Voter turn-out throughout the state has been estimated at roughly one-third.

According to the NYC Board of Elections, 924,330 votes were cast in New York City in the Democratic presidential primary; while 108,466 New Yorkers voted in the Republican primary.

Republican Presidential Primary Results
Trump’s equally decisive primary victory is on view in our area — witness the red spread throughout the map below.

It is striking, however, that the majority of Republican voters in heavily Orthodox Jewish Borough Park and sections of Midwood went for Ted Cruz.

Screenshot of map produced by the New York Times showing electoral districts in our area where the majority selected Donald Trump (red), Ted Cruz (yellow), or John Kasich (blue).

Questions About Voter Disenfranchisement
As many as 126,000 registered Democratic voters were removed from Brooklyn’s voting rolls in recent months. The number is not insignificant — around 314,000 Brooklynites (Democrats and Republicans) voted in yesterday’s primary.

New York City Board of Elections Executive Director Michael Ryan reportedly argued to CNN last night that “we’re not finding that there were issues throughout the city that are any different than what we experience in other elections.”

A number of Ditmas Park Corner readers told us about their voting experiences yesterday on our Facebook page, and the majority were trouble free, though a handful of readers said their names had been lost and they were given affidavit ballots.

Ryan told CNN that of the 126,000 Brooklyn voters taken off the rolls, 12,000 had moved out of Brooklyn, 44,000 “had been placed in an inactive file after mailings to their homes bounced back,” and 70,000 were already inactive, “having failed to vote in two successive federal elections or respond to cancel notices.”

Borough President Eric Adams said last night that he was “troubled over the tens of thousands of our neighbors who have been inexplicably purged from the voter rolls.”

In a statement, Adams added that the city’s Board of Elections “must immediately reverse these errors in advance of June’s congressional primaries, and Comptroller Stringer must expedite the completion of his audit of the agency.”