Starting in late October, New Yorkers will have the chance to head to the polls for a nine-day period before Election Day.

• Some of the New Voting Reforms in New York

But even with that victory for progressives that the state legislature pushed, Mayor Bill de Blasio is sounding an alarm:

"If we get the same old mistakes and the same old excuses from the Board of Elections, then early voting is not going to work, either," the mayor said at a rally Monday afternoon. "And we have to be honest about that."

De Blasio doesn't sound confident the city Board of Elections can pull it off. "We say BOE and unfortunately we don't say it so favorably," he said. "Because it should stand for Board of Elections, not the Board of Excuses. But too often, it's been the Board of Excuses."

So on Monday, he made the board an offer: Take $75 million and make sure the city has 100 poll sites open for early voting.

"We're saying very clearly to the Board of Elections: We'll put our money where our mouth is," de Blasio said. "Now are you ready to take up this task? Are you ready to do the right thing?"

Under state election regulations, the city would only have to have 34 sites open. But de Blasio wants that tripled, claiming all New Yorkers need easy access to sites.

• City BOE Testing New Machines for Early Voting — Including Some from a Favored Vendor

This is not the first time de Blasio has criticized the board.

"The board has no coherent vision for how to make voting an easy and positive experience," he said in 2018.

"For decades and decades, it's been a strange combination of government-sanctioned but party-run," he said in 2016.

In 2016, de Blasio offered the board $20 million in exchange for reforms like enhanced poll worker training. The board never accepted the money.

This time, the mayor says, may be different.

"This is a decisive moment for them," de Blasio said Monday. "They have to act differently or there will be more and more pressure to change the structure forever."

The state Board of Elections passed regulations this morning that, in part, stipulates city boards are required to identify early voting poll sites by May 1 and if they want more sites than the required 34.

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