This is a sample of the new New York license plate. (Provided photo)

ALBANY — By April, New York’s new license plate design was supposed to be available to drivers registering vehicles across the state.

That was the plan, at least, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration held an online vote to determine the design late last summer.

But the new design — a white background with blue lettering, with images of Niagara Falls and the Statue of Liberty along the bottom — has yet to be affixed to any cars.

The delay is at least partially due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Cuomo administration.

With DMV offices across the state closed to in-person visitors, fewer people have been registering new vehicles and needing new plates. So counties across the state have been slower to deplete their supply of the state’s “Empire Gold” plates — the ones with the yellow background and blue lettering — than the state originally anticipated.

A shipment of the new license plates to county offices across the state, meanwhile, had to be recalled recently, Spectrum News reported Tuesday.

The plates, which were among the first batch printed, were found to be too reflective to be picked up by some of the highway system’s older license-plate readers and cameras.

The plates will be recirculated as the older systems are replaced, according to the state.

“Early on, the state changed its manufacturing process once it was discovered that some of the new plates were too reflective, and while some have been shipped inadvertently to counties, none were issued to drivers,” state DMV spokesperson Lisa Koumjian said in a statement.

“The state has already collected and replaced them and they will eventually be reissued.”

Cuomo’s administration first announced its plan to introduce a new license-plate design last August, when it launched an online vote among five designs to pick a winner.

At the time, Cuomo had pushed a plan that would have required those with decade-old plates to pay $25 for new ones. He reasoned that the plates would have to be in good condition to be picked up by cameras for the state’s cashless toll system, which is set to expand to the full Thruway system this year.

Cuomo later dropped the plate-swap mandate amid criticism from motorists.

Now, the new plate design will be first made available in counties who run out of the old blue-and-yellow plates. Among the counties running low are Monroe County, according to the state.