WHITE PLAINS WESTCHESTER DAILY NEWS SERVICE VISITS SINCE 2000 A.D. 25TH YEARl REPORTING THE NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW News Service Since 2000 A.D. 2026 WILL BE OUR 26TH YEAR OF COVERING WHITE PLAINS NEW YORK USA . John F. Bailey, Editor (914) 997-1607 wpcnr@aol.com Cell: 914-673-4054. News Politics Personalities Neighborhoods Schools Finance Real Estate Commentary Reviews Policy Correspondence Poetry Philosophy Photojournalism Arts. The WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER. TELEVISION: "White Plains Week" News Roundup, 7:30 EDT FRI, 7 EDT MON & the incisive "People to Be Heard" Interview Program 8PM EDT THURS, 7 PM EDT SAT on FIOS CH 45 THROUGHOUT WESTCHESTER AND, ALTICE OPTIMUM WHITE PLAINS CH 1300 Fighting for Truth, Justice and the American Way. TOP 10 VISITORS FROM AROUND THE WORLD :1. USA. 2.BRAZIL3.VIET NAM 4. CHINA 5. JAPAN 6.UK. 7.CANADA. 8.INDIA. 9.AUSTRALIA 10.IRELAND 11.GERMANY 12..ARGENTINA 13.BANGLADESH 14.RUSSIA. 15.NEWZEALAND. 16. FRANCE. 17.MEXICO. 18.UKRAINE. 19.SOUTH AFVRICA. 20. IRAQ.
WPCNR CORONAVIRUS REPORT.From Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. November 6, 2020:
Yesterday, there were more than 100,000 new COVID cases in the U.S. Every expert told us that come the fall, cases would go up. We expected this and can effectively deal with the outbreaks by our micro-cluster strategy. But one of our very best tools in this battle to prevent the spread of the virus is if each and every one of us wears a mask. Wearing a mask is about respect, it’s about community and it’s about love. And remember that mask wearing is mandatory on public transit.
It’s going to take the work of every New Yorker so we all need to Mask Up. We can’t let our guard down as we spend more time indoors. We can’t say just this one time I’ll skip the mask. We can stay the course New York. Together we can beat this virus.
Chart of the Day: Yesterday, New York State reported over 160,000 diagnostic tests. Here’s what else you need to know :
1. The positivity rate in the “micro-cluster” focus areas fell was 3.04 percent yesterday. The statewide positivity rate excluding these areas was 1.70 percent. Of the 161,019 tests reported yesterday, 2,997, or 1.86 percent, were positive. Total hospitalizations were at 1,277. Sadly we lost 24 New Yorkers.
2. The January 2021 Regents exams are canceled. Due to COVID-19 concerns, the New York State Education Department decided to cancel the examinations across the state to ensure the safety of both students and educators. The Education Department will also ask the Board of Regents to adopt emergency regulations and apply specific exemptions so not to negatively impact students. A decision on the June and August exams have not been decided yet.
3. We can’t underestimate the strain of COVID fatigue. Mental health is just as important as physical health. New Yorkers can call the State’s mental health hotline at 1-844-863-9314 for free emotional support, consultations & referrals to a provider or visit the Office of Mental Health for resources.
4. Download the COVID Alert NY app today. New York launched an Exposure Notification App so New Yorkers can help stop the spread of COVID-19 and receive exposure alert notifications without compromising privacy or personal information. Click here to download it directly to your iPhone. Click here to download it directly to your Android device.
If you were forwarded this email, you can subscribe to New York State’s Coronavirus Updates here. Ever Upward, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
WPCNR NEWS AND COMMENT. Special to WPCNR by Stephen Rolandi, Public Policy Analyst, November 5, 2020:
Editor’s Note: On Monday Stephen Rolandi analyzed the Presidential Election for WPCNR predicting a Joseph Biden victory. Here is Mr. Rolandi’s view of the results as of Thursday evening, which are solely his own opinion and do not reflect the views of his employers, Pace University and City University of New York.
Here’s how I see the remaining states:
Biden – 253
He likely wins PA + 20 – Biden down now by only 60,000 since Tuesday night when Trump had a lead of 600,000. There are more than enough votes in Philadelphia & Allegheny (Pitts.) counties for Biden to win here.
May win GA. + 16 – he’s down by only 3400 now (as of 8 PM). (Now 1,902 as of 10 P.M.)
Biden likely wins Nevada + 6 — he’s leading here with 13,000, with more ballots to count.
===============================================
Trump – 217
Probably wins NC + 15
Has a chance in AZ (+ 11) with 200,000 ballots left to count
So, by my math, Biden would have 295; Trump would have 243.
Trump needs to win PA & Georgia to win re-election – if he loses the vote count in these states, he has to go to court, and so far, I’m not impressed with his “arguments” — he needs someone with the stature of a James Baker to make the case publicly for him, and it’s not happening, as yet. I think the best Trump probably has is Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekolow. He needs a top-notch Law School Professor, like Alan Dershowitz. Trump is his own worst enemy.
State election laws govern here, unless Trump can somehow prove that his constitutional rights as a candidate have been violated. See Bush v. Gore (2000).
BOTTOM LINE:
Biden will likely be declared the winner by the networks (Friday or over the week-end). Trump’s only option then would be to go to court to overturn ballot results in PA. & Georgia, and perhaps Nevada or Arizona.
STEVE FERRI ON ZOOM WITH WHITE PLAINS TELEVISION JOHN BAILEYJOHN BAILEY INTERVIEWS STEVE FERRI EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF WHITE PLAINS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER ON HOW THEATER COMES BACK IN WESTCHESTER AND ON BROADWAY
HOW THE WHITE PLAINS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER NOW IN ITS 16TH YEAR WILL COME BACK AS SOON AS GOVERNOR CUOMO LIFTS THEATRE RRESTRICTIONS
HOW WPPAC HAS MET COVID SAFETY STANDARDS IN VENTILATION AND DISTANCING IN EDUCATION PROGRAMS SAFELY ALL SUMMER LONG
HOW THEATER OWNERS , ACTORS, BEHIND-THE SCENES STAFF CAN GO ON WITH THE SHOW(S)
THE NEW WHITE PLAINS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER SEASON.
HOW THE LOSS OF THE WESTCHESTER BROADWAY THEATRE WILL BE MET.
THE ECONOMICS OF THE NEW THEATER IN THE YEARS AHEAD
TONIGHT AT 8 ON PEOPLE TO BE HEARD ON FIOS CH 45 COUNTYWIDE AND ALTICE OPTIMUM CH. 76
Westchester County Health Department and Open Door Family Medical Center will begin offering increased testing at Open Door Port Chester located at 5 Grace Church St, Port Chester, NY 10573 tomorrow until Saturday. The testing initiative was made in consultation with the New York State Department of Health.
GEORGIA WAS NOT COMPLETED AS OF 11 AM FULTON COUNTY (ATLANTA) KEY FACTOR. IF BIIDEN HOLDS NEVADA AND ARIZONA, HE REACHES 270 VOTES AND IS UNOFFICIAL WINNER OF THE PRESIDENCY.COUNTING IN GEORGIA: 50,000 VOTES TO BE REPORTED –AT APPROXIMATELY 11 A.M.COUNTING IN PHILLY: 168,000 VOTES STILL TO BE COUNTED IN Philadelphia and BUCKS COUNTY. VOTES REPORTED RUNNING AT 78% IN FAVOR OF BIDEN.THE FRONT PAGE THIS MORNING
SINCE 1 A.M. THIS MORNING MR. BIDEN HAS INCREASED HIS LEAD OVER MR. TRUMP IN ARIZONA AND NEVADA, HOWEVER NO NEW VOTE COUNTS IN ARIZONA AND NEVADA IN 12 HOURS. LATEST FIGURES FROM GEORGIA SHOW MR. BIDEN CLOSING IN ON MR. TRUMP’S LEAD WITH FINAL OUTSTANDING VOTES TO BE COUNTED COMING IN FROM ATLANTA’S FULTON COUNTY. SPECULATION IS MR. BIDEN COULD TAKE THE LEAD IN GEORGIA LATER THIS MORNING.
• Donald Trump: 213• Joe Biden: 253 —As of 7:15 AM current trends projecting Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona and Maine electoral votes put Mr. Biden at 270 electoral Votes and Mr. Trump at 268, presuming Trump takes Georgia, North and South Carolina and Pennyslvania.Georgia promises completed count by 11 AM Thursday. Pennsylvania later today.
The following states have been called for Biden as of last night at 3 AM: Vt., Va., Conn., Del., Ill., Md., Mass., N.J., R.I., N.Y., N.M., D.C., Colo., N.H., Calif., Ore., Wash., Hawaii, Minn.
The following states have been called for Trump: Ky., W. Va., S.C., Ala., Miss., Tenn., Okla., Ark., Ind., N.D., S.D., Wyo., La., Neb., Kan., Mo., Idaho, Utah, Ohio, Iowa, Mont., Fla. As of 3 AM Trump had leads in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennyslvania, North Carolina and Georgia. But counting of absentee ballots may delay the counts in those states for several days.
All Westchester County Districts have reported in by 3:00 AM with favorites who were trailing early overcoming the early results. Results are unofficial at this time:
Shelly Mayer, running for State Senate District 37, County Executive George Latimer’s former State Senate Seat, overcame an early lead of Republican Liviu Saimovici,, defeating her by 62,345 votes to 44,966.
State Senator Peter Harchham in State Senate District 40, at this time is leading Robert Astorino, the former County Executive of Westchester County 45,881 votes to Astorino’s 42,196., erasing an early 7,000 vote lead of Astorino’s. However Absentee Ballots (100,000) still need to be counted by the Westchester County Board of Elections.
Christopher Burdick In the White Plains Assembly race to fill former Assemblyman David Buchwald’s departure, in the WP-Harrison-Bedford-Lewisboro Assembly District 93, eased past Republican John Nuculovic 30,465 votes to 19,270.
In the Westchester District Attorney’s Race, Mimi Rocah the Democratic candidate cruised past Republican Bruce Bendish 198,115 votes to 113,413
In the contest for the vacated Congressional District 17 Seat (Congresswoman Nita Lowey elected to retire and did not run for another term) Mondaire Jones the Democrat with 84,329 votes defeated ElizabethMcArdle-Schulman the Republican with 51,984.
Incumbent SeanPatrick Maloney Democrat erased an early lead over Chele Farley, winning 17,270 votes to 13,000 votes in the 18th State Senate District.
Jamaal Bowman has won the 16th Congressional District Seat, formerly held by Elliot Engel.
Voters getting on end of line at WPHS at 7 AM. One voter told WPCNR he had gotten on the line at 6 AM and had just voted at 7 AM. He said there were 4 to 5 machines, and the polls were letting in 8 to 10 at a time from the line. By 10 AM there was no line, no waiting to vote.75 Persons Lined Up to Vote at 6 AM at B-1 Room, White Plains High School, USA. Polling Place opened promptly at 6 AM, Waiting on line at 5:50 AM. Polls in Westchester County are open from 6 AM to 9 PM. Dress warmly. 249,000 persons have already voted in Westchester County, 138,625 by Early Voting and 110,375 by Absentee Ballot.Preparations Just Before Polling Place OpenedThe Front Page This Morning. Election Day in USADawn on Election Day 5:40 AM EST. 37 DEGREES AND A BITING WIND CHILL, DRESS WARMLY, VOTERS
THE NUMBER OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY VOTERS VOTING EARLY WAS 138,625 ACCORDING TO MEDIA OUTLETS AFTER THE 17 POLLING PLACES CLOSED. THIS MEANS 21.6% OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY REGISTERED VOTERS VOTED EARLY. AT THE MOST CROWDED POLLING PLACES, APPROXIMATELY 100 PERSONS AN HOUR WOULD HAVE TO BE PROCESSED.
COLD RAIN HAS BEEN FALLING WITH NO SHELTER FOR THE INTREPID WHITE PLAINS VOTERS AS OF 2:20 PM. THE LINE CONTINUES AROUND THE QUARROPOS SIDE OF THE BOARD OF ELECTIONS AND STILL BACKS UP ALMOST TO 149 GRAND STREET. DIFFERENT VOTERS SAME WAIT.
WPCNR POLICE GAZETTE. From White Plains Department of Public Safety. November 1, 2020 UPDATED NOVEMBER 3, 2020:
White Plains Police reported to the media that a person was shot at 7 PM while sitting in a car with the person suspected of the shooting at 155 Ferris Avenue, Friday.
A 20-year-old Bronx man was arrested on a felony charge of 1st degree robbery Friday in connection with a shooting on Ferris Avenue in White Plains, reports The Journal News.
Matusim Carter, of the Bronx, was found a few hours after the shooting, after a disagreement over a purchase of sneakers.
The victim was wounded in the upper leg and was reported in stable condition at Westchester Medical Center.
THE TIME 11:15 A.M. EASTERN STANDARD TIME SUNDAY. DOGGED VOTERS ARE LINED UP AND WAITING TO VOTE AT THE ONLY POLLING PLACE IN WHITE PLAINS NY USA.THE LINE WRAPPED AROUND DOWN QUARROPAS STREET FOR THE WIDTH OF THE ELECTIONS BUILDING. CONTINUED AROUND DOWN THE QUARROPAS BLOCK WOUND UP GRAND STREET.THIS REVERSE ANGLE SHOT DOWN GRAND STREET (LOOKING NORTH) SHOWS THE BEGINNING OF THE LINEUP TO VOTE WITH PEOPLE STILL JOINING IT AT 11:45 AM.
WPCNR STREETS OF WHITE PLAINS. News and Comment By John F. Bailey NOVEMBER 1, 2020 UPDATED NOVEMBER 2 WITH ACTUAL NUMBER OF VOTERS VOTING EARLY:
They were lining up to vote.
They joined the line.
The line they knew they would have to stand in for hours.
They stood, silent, forlorn, faces set in commitment waiting for polls to start counting their votes.
By WPCNR reckoning depending on how many voting machines were in the Board of Elections Polling Place, each person would each take 5 minutes to vote between checking in with the polling personnel and signing their name in the big voter rolls books, then tediously, squinting and filling out by dark pen (which had to be sanitized each time the pen was used by a voter), then had to fill in hard-to-read ballots for their choices in very teeny, tiny, little circles you had to fill in precisely within the lines.
(That was a long one sentence paragraph that hardly describes the agony of voting early in White Plains NY USA and every other of the 17 Early Voting Polling Centers.)
I reckon it will take each person in that waiting line above, hours to vote once poll opened. It has been like this all week long at the Board of Elections Polling Place at 25 Quarropos Street. About 100 persons were lined up this morning at 11:45 A.M..
This means that if you got on the end of the end of the line once polls opened and each person ahead of you took 5 minutes to vote it would take you 8 hours to vote. If each person ahead of you took 10 minutes to vote, you would not get to vote unless they kept the polls open to 9 PM,
There were no preparations for a heavy early voting turnout. There were no contingency plans that we could see last week/
“There are too many voting early.”
OK. But they were not ready for the worst case it could be. They weren’t prepared to expand hours exponentially.
Just thinking (somebody has to do it):
Perhaps they should have kept the polls open from 6 AM to 9 PM like a regular election day once they saw the giant turnouts and perhaps open maybe two more polling places in White Plains to help things out and would ease the pain.
Of course the excuse is we “had no idea the turnout would be so large.”
Well in White Plains there are 33,000 registered voters (approximately). You had one polling place that was open for 9 days for early voting(still one day to vote). This would mean that if all voted early you would have to accommodate 3,666 voters every day for 9 days. Of course there are the absentee ballots. So let’s say there were thousands of those.
Judging from the crowd waits in White Plains you were probably getting 400 voters a day voting early, and many had to come back the next day. My point is you had to have more than 17 early voting polling places in the county, not just one in a city of 57,000.
Not withstanding, you have by squeezing people into the Board of Elections which is not specious by any means, you are potentially creating a “Super Spreader, hard to social distance” environment to vote.
However the county has two venues in White Plains that could have housed a polling place in the specious County Center with plenty of room to string out 10, 20, 30, 40 voting machines and voting kiosks to space out the White Plains voters at least. All that had to be done was to cart the records over from the BOE. You could hire more elections inspectors…and run the lines either around the floor of the County Center and put the voting machined on the center stage.
Another venue could have been the White Plains Performing Arts Center Wind the lines through the seats of the theater check in in the front of the stage and have them vote in kiosks on stage and carry them over to a bank of voting machines.
I can hardly wait to see the crowds at the regular polling places in White Plains on Tuesday.
At the pace they were getting votes cast at The Board of Elections say 10 minutes for each person to vote, 5 at a time with 4 to 6 machines,(there should have been more) you’d be clearing 50 to 60 an hour. If signing-in, pen wiping, and painstaking voting filling in took 5 minutes a person, 4 machines you’d be clearing a 100 an hour (600 a day).
Westchester County has 642,976 registered voters. Seventeen Early Voting Polling Places were open for those 642,976 voters. If half decided to vote early each polling place could perhaps have to handle 18,911 voters. That is 2,000 a day. At the pace of the early voting that has taken place the 17 early voting polls could never have handled a 50% turnout.
Say 25% of Westchester voters voted early (161,000) : the 17 polling places would have have still had to expect 1,000 a day (1,052).The absentee voters would cut down on that, but by how much? Judging by the pace of the early voting process, on each of the 8 days to date, they cannot handle 500 a day.
UPDATED EDITOR’S NOTE: THE ACTUAL NUMBER OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY VOTERS VOTING EARLY WAS 138,625 ACCORDING TO MEDIA OUTLETS AFTER THE 17 POLLING PLACES CLOSED. THIS MEANS 21.6% OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY REGISTERED VOTERS VOTED EARLY.
The long lines prove that.
WPCNR salutes the intrepid voters willing to go through this incredible surreal experience (poorly planned, poorly funded, poorly decisioned as it has proved to be), to have their say in early voting.
You are the real heroes of the USA, you are making your commitment to the country, and sending a message that you care about your country what it stands for and what it has brought to the world the last 244 years: Truth, Justice and the American Way.
