The State Constitution sets the parameters for how all elections in the state are managed, requiring that Republicans and Democrats be equally represented at all levels of election administration. In New York City, the 10 Board of Elections members are recommended by the Democratic and Republican Party committees in each of the five boroughs and then confirmed by the City Council. The parties also play a central role in installing people in staff positions. The board currently has no executive director in part because the county leaders have not been able to agree on a candidate.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a frequent critic of the board, called for eliminating the patronage system by which the commissioners are appointed.
Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a watchdog group, said New York should move to a nonpartisan system.
Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh of Manhattan has sponsored a Constitutional amendment that would allow the Legislature to set qualifications, like experience in administering elections, for members and for essential employees of the elections boards in the state.
The speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, said Wednesday that the state should “seriously examine” allowing early voting to relieve the problem of the long lines on Election Day.
The New York City public advocate, Bill de Blasio, and the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer also endorsed early voting, as well as legislation allowing same-day registration.
In the meantime, the City Council plans to hold a hearing on Dec. 5 to examine the problems that occurred on Election Day, which, in addition to long lines, included jammed or broken ballot scanners, and poll sites that ran out of affidavit ballots for voters displaced by Hurricane Sandy.
Gale Brewer, a city councilwoman from the Upper West Side and the chairwoman of the government operations committee, said people were “definitely disenfranchised” as a result of the long waits at polls Tuesday. She said the chaos had made her worry about how things would go in next year’s local elections, in which New Yorkers would be electing not only a new mayor, but also other citywide officials and many new members of the Council.
We all hope this will be the start of a serious discussion to bring our voting process into the 21st Century and open to all voters.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
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The Post Office is state of the Union, not State of the Art, yet used postal sorting machines could easily eliminate a third of BOE staff. The Board of Elections is a huge patronage mill disinterested in making things work. If they cared, they could easily have transmitted the tallies wirelessly. Most city agencies are deliberately inefficient, hiding behind bogus claims of fairness. Instead of putting his efficiency, logistics and operations experts on "Congestion Pricing", Bloomberg would do well to have them clean up the agencies. Plenty towns have local postmasters so it would not hurt federalism to merge the boards of elections and census with the post offices.
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