The story of early voting this year was, without question, its sky-high turnout. 

At the close of voting Sunday night, officials posted the nine-day total: 1,119,056 votes cast. That amounts to 40% of the total voter turnout in the 2016 presidential election.

What You Need To Know

  • The nine-day early voting period ended Sunday with 1.1 million votes cast

  • That total equates to 40 percent of voter turnout in 2016

  • Brooklyn had the highest turnout with more than 373,000, but Staten Island had the highest rate of voter participation

  • Advocates say officials should add more early voting sites and the ability to vote anywhere in one's borough

"New Yorkers have done something amazing in the course of the last days,” Mayor de Blasio said Monday. “We've seen early voting on an incredible level.”

"The numbers were astronomical, far beyond anybody's projection,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, a good-government group that has long advocated for voting reforms.

The borough-by-borough breakdown shows Brooklyn with the highest turnout, at 373,270, though Staten Island had by far the best turnout relative to its voting population. The 104,043 Staten Islanders who voted early represent a full one third of the borough’s registered voters. 

The crowds came as a surprise to many, including the city Board of Elections, which came under a torrent of criticism. Mayor de Blasio called for the agency to be dismantled early last week, and Governor Cuomo sounded receptive to radical reform.

"The waits on line of two, three, four hours — and for too many people in too many polling sites — are unacceptable,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of New York Civil Liberties Union. “The unequal distribution of polling sites was unacceptable.” 

“But,” she added, “these are problems that are solvable, and New York has come out of the Dark Ages when it comes to voting."

Some said the Board of Elections made effective adjustments in response to initial problems, adding hours and making logistical tweaks.

“The Board of Elections made significant changes to its procedures over the course of early voting so that they were responsive to this unexpected tsunami of voters,” Lerner said. "Over the course of the nine days, we saw lines that were moving more quickly. We saw people that were able to get in and out on some days without any delay at all."

Groups like Common Cause point to the need for not only more early voting locations, but also for the ability to vote at any poll site in one's borough. And given that New York state implemented early voting just last year, there was broad acknowledgment that even scenes of hours-long waits represented progress.

“No matter what the challenges, no matter how long the lines — and I can speak about that from personal experience — the people of this city wanted to be heard,” de Blasio said. "And they went out and did the right thing. And a lot more to come tomorrow on Election Day.”