The city Board of Elections churned out thousands of cards last week directing Queens voters to the wrong polling sites for the Sept. 10 primary - in some cases miles from their homes.

The error was caught only after dozens of irate voters complained, some of them raising suspicions of deliberate fraud. But the Board of Elections blamed a computer glitch and promised that new instruction cards will be sent by First Class mail tomorrow.

Barbara Conacchio, the agency's chief clerk in Queens, said the mixup began when when a computer misread the identification numbers of schools used as polling sites. For example, PS 90 was read as PS 9, she said, an error that resulted in the creation of cards directing Richmond Hill voters to Maspeth.

One of those who received bad instructions, Councilman Leroy Comrie, was told to vote at PS 18 near Creedmore Psychiatric Center. His actual polling place is nearly three miles away - PS 118 in Hollis.

Comrie said his office was inundated with complaints about the glitches, with some of his constituents suspecting an intentional effort to stack the deck against state Comptroller H. Carl McCall in his Democratic gubernatorial primary contest with former federal housing secretary Andrew Cuomo.

"People are hot. A lot of people feel that because it's a gubernatorial election and we have a chance to elect Carl McCall, errors were intentionally made," Comrie said.

Of five state Assembly districts affected by the errors, all but one (covering the Flushing area) have large nonwhite populations, Comrie noted. McCall, who is black, is likely to do particularly well in those areas.

Comrie's predecessor in the council, Democratic District Leader Archie Spigner, said he fears a "substantially reduced voter turnout because of the incorrect instructions, combined with other polling changes as a result of redistricting."

Conacchio could not estimate how many inaccurate cards were sent. Comrie, however, said 6,000 voters received bad instructions in the 29th and 33rd Assembly districts alone.

Here are the poll sites involved:

Voters wrongly sent to PS 94 in Little Neck will be redirected to PS 194 in Whitestone.

Voters wrongly sent to PS 85 in Long Island City will be redirected to PS 185 in Flushing.

Voters wrongly sent to PS 9 in Maspeth will be redirected to PS 90 in Richmond Hill.

Voters wrongly sent to JH 158 in Bayside will be redirected to IS 8 in Jamaica.

Voters wrongly sent to PS 12 in Woodside will be redirected to PS 112 in Long Island City.

Voters wrongly sent to PS 18 in Bellerose will be redirected to PS 188 in Hollis.

newsday

-- Anonymous, August 29, 2002