By: Hadassa Kalatizadeh
Top New York City lawmakers now insist that the Board of Elections requires sweeping reforms, promising to hold hearings. Last month’s election flop has convinced key members of the New York state Legislature to move towards changes.
For the June 22 Democratic mayoral primary, which was the first to implement the city’s new ranked-choice voting system, the board’s staff had released inaccurate information, and later retracted the results. It was “a national embarrassment”, said Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Democrat from Yonkers. She said the chamber would hold hearings and “seek to pass reform legislation as a result at the earliest opportunity.” NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said there were “fundamental structural flaws” with the election board. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said the agency was “a patronage mill”, where people with political connections got jobs which they aren’t qualified for. The board’s 10 commissioners are picked by leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties in each of the five boroughs.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Assemblywoman Latrice Walker (D- Brooklyn), who chairs the chamber’s election committee, said she would hold a hearing this month to examine how ranked-choice voting had impacted the election. She said she thought officials were not sufficiently prepared to implement the new system, and added that the hearings would also look into longstanding concerns regarding the Board’s structure. “There are a number of proposals for reforms to the Board of Elections, so we’re going through our process of figuring out what vehicle will get us there,” Ms. Walker said.
While some longtime critics for ranked-choice voting blamed the new system for the fiasco, others insisted it was just human error as a result of the board’s incompetence. The Board has acknowledged that employees failed to properly reset the ranked-choice computer system, and so 135,000 extra votes from the system test were added to the actual tally.
Assemblywoman Nily Rozic, (D- Queens), has sponsored a new bill that would require training and qualifications for election commissioners. “I’m hoping that this is the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Ms. Rozic, regarding last week’s error. As per the WSJ, the state’s leading Democratic and Republican election officials said in interviews that they don’t wish to change the board’s bipartisan structure. They did, however, show willingness to introduce additional requirements.
Board officials are still counting some 124,000 absentee ballots and said they would release new rankings on Tuesday. The official final results will only be released the week of July 12.
