This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated July 9, 2021
The 2016 election was clearly a watershed moment in our country. Although who would win that New York Democratic primary for President was not in doubt, I was eager to cast my vote on April 19, 2016. Unfortunately, I was almost turned away without marking a ballot.
Despite living on the block of my local polling site, which I had voted at for over a dozen years, when I checked in at the desk just after they opened at 6 a.m., I was told that my election district was not on the rolls at that school. One worker, doing her best, advised I visit a different polling location, miles away, that was not in my assembly district, after she consulted some reference material she had.
I showed them on my phone that the Board of Elections’ own website was directing me to this polling location and confirming my Election and Assembly districts, which for some reason the poll workers had no record of. A neighbor of mine, who was working at the poll site, was having the same issue. He lived across the street, which was a different election district, but it was not just mine that was affected.
Both he and I were persistent. After more than an hour of confusion, I was given an affidavit ballot, cast my vote, and headed to the subway, now very late for work. I am sure many others left without voting. Soon, I learned that the issue that had affected my election district was small compared to the fact that nearly 120,000 Brooklyn Democratic voters had been mistakenly dropped from the rolls prior to the primary, causing mass confusion across the borough that day.
“With respect to our elections, democracy cannot take a back seat to politics.”
Within two days, a politically appointed Board of Elections clerk had been suspended without pay for the foul-up. Nine months later, the U.S. Justice Department sued the city Board of Elections for breaking the law when it purged those names from the rolls.
Unfortunately, stories like this have not been unusual for the city Board of Elections. The embarrassing BOE mistake on June 30, when partial ranked choice results for the Mayor’s race included 135,000 test ballots in error, was a continuation of this troubled history.
In September of 2020, over 100,000 Brooklyn voters received absentee ballot return envelopes that had incorrect addresses and names printed on them. The third-party vendor would mail corrected ballots, but the BOE admitted that they had never sent any staff to perform inspections at the vendor site to ensure they met the necessary requirements.
To be clear, there are many hardworking, competent employees at the Board of Elections, at all levels. However, the longtime system, where many high-level, decision-making jobs are patronage positions, filled by Democratic and Republican party leadership, makes it inevitable that at least some very important slots will be filled with people who are not qualified for the positions they hold.
Repeated mishaps have borne this out. A Board specifically made up from partisans from the left and the right, many of whom are appointed for their dedication to their party and not because they are election experts, does not serve the public and has actually failed it time and again. We need a new, non-partisan system that ensures the most qualified people are overseeing our elections.
Any changes to the status quo would be difficult and require state involvement, as state law and the New York state constitution dictate most of the parameters for how the Board of Elections can be set up and operated, but that is not a reason not to try to improve the current, dysfunctional system. If state law needs to be changed to ensure more reliable elections in New York City, Albany needs to explore what they can do. If the state constitution needs to be amended to bring competency to the system, even though that process takes multiple legislative sessions, our state legislators need to start the process, post-haste.
At a time when some are trying to undermine faith in our elections, we need to do everything possible to ensure they are not rife with mismanagement and incompetency. With respect to our elections, democracy cannot take a back seat to politics.
