LI Principal Seeks To End Voting At School After Irate Voter Kicks Table

LAKE GROVE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- A Long Island principal is asking for voting to be moved out of his school because of safety concerns.

According to Principal Ken Gutmann, what began as a normal primary day at Eugene Auer Memorial School turned violent, after a local voter became enraged over the fact that former GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson was still listed on the ballot, WCBS 880's Sophia Hall reported.

"He started screaming and yelling and then he kicked a table and he stormed out of the gym and kicked the door on the way out," Gutmann said. 

The man left for a short period of time but then returned, and a physical altercation occurred between him and a Board of Elections employee, Gutmann said.

"He went to grab a pile of ballots that was on the table, a Board of Elections worker went over to him and kind of grabbed him and threw him out the door," Gutmann said.

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In wake of the incident, the principals in Suffolk County's Middle Country School District are asking the Board of Elections to move voting out of their schools.

Gutmann said on a normal day, school security personnel ask visitors why they are at the school, and to provide proper identification before being allowed in -- something not typically done on election days.

"Schools are just not safe places to have voting anymore," Gutmann said.

The office for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said it received over 1,000 complaints from voters on Tuesday. The attorney general said it is the largest volume of complaints they have received for a general election since taking office in 2011. The office said they only received 150 complaints in the 2012 general election.