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Embattled Brooklyn political boss Vito Lopez will be on familiar territory when he launches his legendary get-out-the vote operation in the Bushwick Assembly district he represents.
Nearly a third of the polling sites in Lopez’s district are in buildings that were built or funded by the massive not-for-profit group he founded, The Post has learned.
Over the last decade, Lopez has used his political clout to move nine of the district’s 31 polling sites into senior-citizen centers, affordable-housing developments and other facilities run by the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, which is being probed by city and federal investigators.
A neighborhood priest told The Post that he asked an elderly resident at one of Lopez’s assisted-living centers if she’d voted in a recent election and that she replied, “Don’t worry, Father. Vito was here and told us how to vote.”
The relocation of polling sites, mostly from schools, has some political opponents fuming that the locations give Lopez a built-in advantage on Election Day.
“When the nonprofit he founded builds the housing, distributes the housing and manages the housing where voting takes place, it’s safe to say that when election time comes, he has an unfair advantage,” said Esteban Duran, who unsuccessfully challenged Lopez in last month’s race for district leader.
Lopez isn’t bashful about moving polling sites. In 2004, he put out a release to let people know a polling site had been moved from a public school to a new affordable-housing development the council had built.
“Assemblyman Vito Lopez is pleased to announce that in response to community requests, the Board of Elections has moved your polling site from PS 145 to the Noll Street Apartments, located at 43 Central Ave.,” read the release, with an accompanying photo of the assemblyman.
A spokesman for the board did not respond to phone calls or an e-mail asking for an explanation of the shift of polling places from schools to facilities operated by or funded by Lopez’s organization.
A call to a spokeswoman for Lopez also was not returned.