The Independent View: Search For Top NYC Elections Chief Stalled

The top elections job in New York City has been vacant for six months. The $173,000-a-year job opening has not been posted. Calls for a nationwide search for a top-notch candidate have been ignored. And yet the City Board of Elections is running just fine without a leader, say people inside and outside the troubled agency.

The board last fall ousted its former executive director, George Gonzalez, after the first primary election with electronic voting machines led to huge lines, delays and breakdowns. Since then, Deputy Executive Director Dawn Sandow has run the agency with guidance from board Chairman J.C. Polanco of the Bronx. Both are Republicans, so under the board’s traditional division of the spoils, the next executive director would likely be a Democrat.

The board is one of the city’s last patronage bastions, with its 10 members – a Republican and a Democrat from each borough – appointed by political party bosses who expect to be able to work the levers of power. The two sides are deadlocked, with neither able to line up a sixth vote for a candidate backed by their party.

So even though City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) and Government Operations Committee Chairwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan) have called for a national search to fill the job, the politically dominated system may deter some qualified applicants. “Who would go in there?” asked one politician who works with the board regularly. “Who would these people elect?” Still, there is not even a pretense of a public search for a new executive director. The board has resisted efforts to publicly advertise for the position in newspapers, on job-hunting websites or even on the board’s own website. It has received five resumes and done nothing with them.

Election watchdogs, though, say cities from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles have rebounded from electoral problems only after appointing competent election experts.

As a registered Independence Party member, I face a wall on all fronts. I can not vote in our primaries, I can not take part in any senior positions at the polls, but can be a closing monitor. There is no position available on commissions that affect all voters. But as an elected official, in his fourth term as a State Representative, 73 AD (Eastside Manhattan) and his third term as an member of the NYC Executive Committee (Manhattan), I will fight for Open Primaries, easier Ballot Access for candidates, open commission positions to independents, and support my 3,000 constituents in their fights with City Hall.