Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Friday that he will be issuing an executive order to have the State Board of Elections send every New Yorker a postage-paid application for an absentee ballot.

With the June 23 primary date quickly approaching, Cuomo said he wants people to have the option to vote from home if necessary, despite some criticism from groups saying that the BOE does not have the infrastructure to tackle this massive undertaking.

"People go to the polls, or people vote absentee. There is no other way to do it," Cuomo said.

The governor also said that the state is going to be conducting a finance report this week.

Cuomo said it will most likely show that the state is facing a $13 billion revenue shortfall. This is a 14 percent drop from the beginning of this year, when the executive budget was released.

Cuomo again criticized U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's statement earlier this week, saying rather than the federal govenrment provide more money for the state, states should declare bankruptcy.

"Legally, states can't declare bankruptcy. ... Pass a law to allow states to declare bankruptcy. I dare you," Cuomo responded.

For the state's coronavirus numbers, Cuomo says that the curve of hospitalizations continues to decline, as do daily intubations, but the number of new hospitalizations has flattened.

Another 422 people statewide passed away from the coronavirus in the last 24 hours.

"It's still devastating news," Cuomo said.

Recent research also shows that there were likely 28,000 coronavirus cases in the U.S. in February, including more than 10,000 in New York. Cuomo said researchers believe New York's strains of coronavirus most likely came from Europe or Italy.

"We closed the front door with the China travel ban, but we left the back door open because the virus left China by the time we did the travel ban," Cuomo said.

Although the time for a post-mortem on the country's response to this pandemic is still to come, Cuomo said there is still important lessons the state can take away from all of this now.

"An outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere," he said.