The process of counting paper ballots from last week's presidential primary has begun. NY1's Courtney Gross visited the Board of Elections headquarters in Brooklyn to see how it will all be done.
Envelope after envelope, employees of the Board of Elections sliced and inspected ballots, all an attempt to make sure every vote is counted.
"We are going through the process of beginning to open the military, federal and absentee ballots we received," said Michael Ryan, executive director of the Board of Elections.
Wednesday was the beginning of what's called the "paper ballot count." The board is starting with absentee ballots. There are 7,000 in Brooklyn alone.
From there, it will move on to the affidavit ballots. There were thousands filled out across the city, with Brooklyn by far in the lead.
Brooklyn is where some 126,000 thousand voters were inexplicably removed from the rolls. It's a massive voter purge that could have accidentally erased thousands of legitimate voters.
Already, the chief clerk here is suspended without pay while the incident is under investigation. It's unclear if any other employees may have been at fault.
"As this situation continues to unfold, I would suspect there would be additional action, but until that action is taken, I can't share it with the public," Ryan said.
Any affidavit ballot the board has from a voter who was purged from the roll will be pulled from the general pile of paper ballots. Board officials say it will be double-checked to make sure that voter wasn't taken off illegitimately.
"We have a credibility gap to make up, and I want to make sure whatever information we release to the public is as accurate as humanly possible," Ryan said.
Even with that promise, there are skeptics. Volunteers from the Bernie Sanders campaign showed up at the board on Wednesday to keep an eye on the process.
"It's a disgrace if, in fact, it's true, and that's why we are here today, to see in fact if it is true," said George Albro, a Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer.
These workers have just days to go through thousands upon thousands of ballots. The Board of Elections is trying to certify these election results by May 3, one ballot at a time.