Voters in upper Manhattan emerged from polling sites today with both praise and complaints for the new voting machines and ballots. This was the city’s first general election with the revamped polling system.

Some found the ovals on the ballots  too small, while others voiced concern over privacy.

State Sen. Bill Perkins of Harlem complained of the small font when he voted at Schomburg Houses at 6 a.m.  “For the elderly and those like me who don’t have 20/20 vision, it could be problematic,” he said

He also mentioned that lighting in some polling areas was insufficient. “In my case, I had to ask them to move the machine into a different position so that I could have more light,” he said. “There’s a whole bunch of improvements that could be made.” But he emphasized, “We’re on the road to a much more sophisticated, user friendly, accessible, successful system as we get through this maiden voyage.”

Using Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Election Day hashtag of #nycvotes, voters posted a steady stream of complaints on Twitter. “The board will monitor and respond to information posted on Twitter with the hashtag #nycvotes with a dedicated Twitter response team, and enter relevant feedback into the board’s phone bank to ensure any poll site issues are handled,” Valerie Vazquez, the Board of Elections spokeswoman, said in a statement.

Voting machine problems delayed and even denied voters on Primary Day, causing Bloomberg, one of the Election Board’s fiercest critics, to call it “a royal screw-up.”

He complained, “Over the past five years, the city has provided the Board of Elections with more than $77 million to make the transition to the new machines — and that doesn’t include the $85 million in federal funds …New Yorkers deserve better than this.”

Amid such criticism, the Board of Elections, in a 6-0 vote, fired Executive Director George Gonzalez last week.

“We urge the board’s commissioners to seize this opportunity to strengthen the leadership of their agency and the council stands ready to assist in anyway possible,” City Council member  Gale Brewer and Council Speaker Christine Quinn said in a joint statement last week.

Before his departure, Gonzalez had said that corrective actions had been taken in redrilling coordinators and monitoring teams. On Monday, Board of Elections President Julie Dent emphasized that fact on WNYC’S “Brian Lehrer Show,” noting that polling sites would be ready with scanners and privacy booths by the end of the day.

“We have worked very, very hard and diligently to make sure that some of the hiccups that we faced on Primary Day will not happen on November 2nd, tomorrow, for Election Day,” she told Lehrer.

She also described the board’s moves to clarify confusion on the ballot instructions, emphasizing that voters should fill the oval below the name. Palm cards and instruction signs around polling sites would explain further.

Ruby Kitchen, who voted at King Towers,  found the old machines easier to navigate. “They’re trying to encourage people to vote,” she said. “Instead of encouraging, you’re discouraging because some people got frustrated and they just leave. All this training that they’re giving people to teach us is not effective.”

Read The Uptowner’s coverage of Democrats sweeping 2010 Elections here in the special report.

Read The Uptowner’s coverage of Rangel’s Future here in the special report.

Michael Bloomberg thanks supporters at a victory party in midtown Tuesday Night. Photo: Associated Press

By Andrew Keshner and Nate Rawlings

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg won a narrow victory over City Comptroller Bill Thompson to earn a third term as mayor, according to Associated Press precinct reports. Credit uptown voters for making this a closer race than expected: preliminary results show Thompson winning more than two-thirds of the northern Manhattan vote.

Citywide, Bloomberg won by a 51 to 46 percent margin, according to Associated Press figures. With 96 percent of districts reporting, the two-term incumbent took more than 530,000 votes compared to Thompson’s roughly 486,000 votes. Bloomberg’s five-percent margin victory tonight is noticeably smaller than the 2005 win ushering in his second term. He slammed Democratic challenger Fernando Ferrer that year , 58 to 39 percent  Four years earlier, in 2001, Bloomberg squeaked by Mark Green with a 49 to 45 percent margin.

Thompson made a strong showing north of 125th Street, taking 67.8 percent of the local vote, compared to Bloomberg’s 30 percent. Uptowner interviews earlier today revealed both Thompson support and anti-Bloomberg sentiment.

“I wanted to definitely vote for Bill Thompson,” said Milagros Genera-Rochet, a Harlem resident, citing the mayor’s position on term limits. “I think that Mayor Bloomberg has the arrogance of adding himself four years, changing the law to suit him.”

Meanwhile, Josmat Rojas of Inwood called Bloomberg “a very dirty politician,” adding, “I don’t know Bill as much as I would like to but I know I didn’t want Mike Bloomberg there anymore so I voted Bill.”

Despite support for the challenger, preliminary turnout in upper Manhattan was sluggish and in step with low turnout rates during other mayoral elections. In uptown precincts, between 20 and 25 percent of registered voters went to the polls, about half the turnout during last year’s presidential vote. The figures may not include all absentee ballots.

Bloomberg touted continuing drops in crime and gains in public education during his victory speech at his midtown campaign headquarters just before midnight. He made other pledges, from planting a million trees to creating jobs from the South Bronx to Coney Island. “If you think you seen progress over the past eight years, I got news for you: You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Bloomberg said to a wave of cheers.

Addressing supporters a little earlier, around 11:30 p.m., Thompson made no mention of how close the race was in the end and tried to put a good face on the situation. “I leave tonight feeling exceedingly proud of the work we did together,” he said, pledging to put aside differences with the mayor and get back to work on city issues.

Michael Bloomberg buys a snack from a school fundraiser after voting on Tuesday. Photo: Associated Press

With tonight’s win, Bloomberg becomes just the fourth three-term mayor in New York history, along with Fiorello LaGuardia (1934-1945), Robert Wagner (1954-1965), and Ed Koch (1978-1989). But tonight’s victory may not pave the way to New York City political immortality.

Bloomberg’s re-election begins amid controversy over term limits that could result in a much thinner mandate. In 1993, New Yorkers voted to limit all elected officials to two terms, and in 1996, voters struck down a City Council attempt to allow officials to extend those limits. The issue arose again in October 2008, when Bloomberg introduced legislation that would allow him and all elected officials to serve a third term. The City Council agreed, by a 29-22 vote, to allow officials to seek office a third time.

“It says that their votes and their voice do not matter,” Thompson said on the day of the City Council decision, according to the New York Times. “Bullying and heavy-handed threats are more powerful than democratic ideals.”

Tonight was the public’s first chance to weigh in on the term-limit extension that set the stage for third-term runs by Bloomberg and, locally, City Councilman Robert Jackson.

Today’s election also showed that Bloomberg’s $85.8 million was well-spent. That’s the amount Bloomberg, who made his fortune building a financial information and media company, spent on his campaign, according to New York City Campaign Finance Board filings. By contrast, Thompson had a war chest of just $4.4 million.

During his speech, Bloomberg congratulated newly-elected Comptroller John Liu and Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio – who have had their differences with the mayor in the past.

Bloomberg tried to look past disagreements tonight.  ”At the end of the day, we all agree on a heck of a lot more than we disagree on,” Bloomberg told his supporters. “Especially our love of New York City.”

Additional reporting by Sarah Butrymowicz, Lisa Waananen and Suzanne Weinstock

*2009 data based on AP preliminary statistics with 98% of precincts reporting

Unwelcome graffiti adorns Hamilton Heights, Manhattan. (Photo by Shane Snow)

There’s a wall on 149th Street between Convent and Amsterdam that used to be gray. Now, it’s still gray, but it’s also purple, orange, green, and yellow. Last spring, the city applied a fresh coat of paint to cover the graffiti that had overtaken it, but community residents say it wasn’t long until taggers reclaimed the wall with cryptic, multicolored messages: bw7, mskz, and Janster.

Graffiti is a problem New York City has been battling for decades. Like a parent who cleans up after relentlessly messy children, city crews trail behind graffiti vandals in a never-ending cycle. The U.S. Department of Justice says graffiti contributes to declines in property value, reduced retail sales, and heightened fears of gang activity.

An amendment Mayor Mike Bloomberg signed earlier this month may make cleanup faster and more thorough.

In 2005, the City Council passed Graffiti Free NYC, which provides free paint and cleaning services and has cleaned 2.5 million square feet of graffiti so far this year, said the sponsor, Councilman Peter Vallone Jr.; however, the paperwork and permission process has hindered cleanup efforts.

The new amendment “shifts the burden from owners to the city,” Carole Post, the director of agency services in the mayor’s office, said at a City Council hearing in September. “Once graffiti is identified the city will send a notice to the property owner saying the city will clean it for free, but if the owner wants to opt out they can within 35 days,” Post said.

An upper Manhattan coalition, ACTION, argued that the amendment wasn’t enough. Spokesperson Gail Cohen said property owners should face stiffer penalties if they don’t let the city clean up their graffiti.

“Don’t baby people,” Cohen told the City Council. “We want a strong bill.”

ACTION insists that New York adopt the stricter measures that have enabled cities like Chicago and Seattle to virtually eradicate graffiti, Cohen said. Citing research by Graffiti Prevention Systems, which surveys graffiti sites in Los Angeles, Cohen said the new law should also mandate speed.

“Data shows that graffiti removed within 48 hours has the best chance of not being repeated,” Cohen said.

Councilman Erik Martin Dilan held a different position. “Homeowners who are vandalized are victims of a crime, and to turn around and punish them is unfair,” Dilan said.

The mayor’s office said it issued 389 notices of graffiti violation to property owners last year. The fees collected for violations help pay for city cleanup crews.

At the hearing Vallone said compromises were required to pass any law, but maintained the new bill was stricter than the original and would improve the city’s graffiti situation. The new law was enacted Oct. 7.

Another concern for uptown residents involves graffiti on landmarked buildings. One Hamilton Heights resident spent tens of thousands of dollars on new windows, iron gates, and stonework restored for an 1897 limestone townhouse he purchased in 2005, only to see the house spray painted by vandals a few months later.

“We were horrified,” said the homeowner, who asked not to be identified for fear of being targeted again. “And let me tell you, most of the neighbors were horrified, too.”

By law, the Landmarks Preservation Commission must review proposals for any exterior changes to historic buildings, including stone refinishing. So owners either trudge through the commission’s permit process to remove graffiti themselves, or allow their buildings to be painted over by the cleanup crews. The alternative is to let the graffiti remain.

“I called the free service and they asked what color to paint it,” the homeowner said. “But it’s limestone!”

Many Harlem homeowners don’t want to clean their graffiti, Cohen said, because they worry about being vandalized again.

Just like the wall on 149th Street.