The office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said it is getting hundreds more reports than usual about problems at polling sites.
As of Tuesday evening, the Attorney General's hotline for voter problems had received more than 700 calls.
By comparison, the office said it had received 150 total complaints during the 2012 general election. Turnout is much higher in general elections than primaries.
Complaints ranged from registration issues to not enough ballots. The AG's office also said they had received multiple reports of missing voter rolls — including entire parts of the alphabet — at more than one polling site.
The problems seemed to be most significant in Brooklyn. Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a statement expressing his concern:
“It has been reported to us from voters and voting rights monitors that the voting lists in Brooklyn contain numerous errors, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters from the voting lists," the statement said. "I am calling on the Board of Election to reverse that purge and update the lists again using Central, not Brooklyn borough, Board of Election staff."
Over the past two days, WNYC reported on a huge purging of registered Democrats in Brooklyn. Over the weekend, the city's Board of Elections acknowledged the number of Democrats had fallen by 63,000 voters since November, because borough election officials had fallen behind on updating active and inactive voter lists. By Monday, the Board of Elections said that number was actually double: 126,000.
City Comptroller Scott Stringer said he would audit the operations and management of the city's Board of Elections.
"Showing up to vote should not be a gamble. It should be a sure thing," Stringer said. "It's time for a full-on investigation as to why the Board of Elections can't do the one thing they are supposed to do very well, which is to hold a democratic election."
The Board of Elections has not yet responded to a request for comment.
While polls opened at 6 a.m. in New York City and some of its suburbs, they opened at noon upstate, an indication that the tally of complaints at the state attorney general's office was coming largely from downstate. The state attorney general's office confirmed that MANY of these complaints were from Kings County (Brooklyn).
Polls remain open until 9 p.m. statewide.