Nepotism, political cronyism, violations of voter privacy and untrained workers run rampant inside the city's beleaguered Board of Elections, according to a 70-page report released Monday by the Department of Investigation after a six-month probe.
DOI officials released a list of 40 recommended organizational changes
to the body charged with ensuring the rights of voters to participate in
the political process on Monday, just a day before avowed BOE critic
Mayor Michael Bloomberg was set to hand over the reins to Bill de
Blasio.
In addition, the investigation found 69 board employees who appeared
to have a relative working within the BOE, with the likelihood of many
more, the report noted.
"DOI found significant areas that require a steadfast resolve to
strengthen and improve operations if BOE is to raise its level of
performance to one in which our city can take pride, and to which we are
all entitled,” DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn wrote in a statement.
"The City’s Board of Elections performs one of the most important
missions in government, enabling our citizens to exercise their right
and civic responsibility to vote in free and fair elections."
If demonstrated incompetence isn’t enough to force change at the city Board of Elections, how about ethical no-no’s?
NY1 caught the board’s executive director, Michael Ryan,
failing to report five trips paid for by the company that makes the city’s ballot scanners.
Ryan did report four other trips, and blames clerical errors for the
ones he didn’t. He also notes that his unpaid service on an advisory
board for the company, Election Systems & Software, was cleared by
the city Conflict of Interest Board.
(Sigh: The COIB has a long record of going easy on high-level folks
while dropping the hammer on underlings for less egregious lapses — but
that’s another editorial.)
Note that Ryan soft-pedaled criticism of ES&S’s DS-200 scanning
machines after the chaos on Election Day, which saw more than 10,000
scanner complaints recorded, compared to just 2,000 in 2016. Instead, he
blamed an “untested” two-page ballot, plus the day’s high humidity, for
jamming the machines.
He also said it’s past time to replace those machines. He would, of
course, have a say in what company to go to for the new ones. Would he
favor the firm that’s been giving him freebies?
This flap might endanger Ryan’s job, which still seemed secure
despite the November nightmares. Firing him is up to the city’s 10
election commissioners — one Democrat and one Republican from each
borough, named by the county party chairmen.
In the end, those political hacks care most about patronage positions
at the board — some of the last such jobs the parties still control.
How many Election Day disasters will it take to force reform of this
system?
The new head of the city Department of Investigation testIfied Friday that his staff has encountered "outright hostility" at the highest levels of the Board of Elections while trying to get the embattled agency to clean up its act.
The Board has not been “anywhere near as cooperative” as necessary in responding to a 2013 DOI investigation that detailed nepotism, incompetence, inefficiency -- and even possible crimes, DOI Commissioner Mark Peters (pictured center) told a joint hearing of the City Council Government Operations and Oversight and Investigations Committees.
Peters said DOI has referred several issues for possible civil
prosecution, and said criminal charges are still possible. In describing
"illegal" activity at the Board, Peters told the lawmakers, “I use the
word deliberately. This is an ongoing investigation, so there are
aspects of it I am not prepared to discuss."
The scathing Dec. 30 DOI report, including 40 recommendations to improve
the elections agency, said family favoritism, waste and ineptitude
hobble the Board.
"The level of nepotism and the level of politics in hiring [at the BOE]
is greater [than] anything reported in recent memory," he said.
The DOI inquest grabbed headlines in large part because of the 63 DOI
agents posing as voters disqualified because of death, felony
convictions or a move out of the city, nearly all were allowed by
pollworkers to cast ballots.
However, the BOE provided data from its state counterpart showing that
39 of the cases where "dead" voters cast ballots, the Board never
received a death notice from the Health Department so the names could be
removed from the rolls.
A mismatch in middle names led to 10 more people not being flagged as
deceased; in three cases where the city Board did get information that a
voter had died, the names were removed.
Peters, who testified as Board of Elections Executive Director Michael
Ryan, state Board Co-Chairman Douglas Kellner and representatives of
good-government groups looked on, insisted that the "dead" voters
weren't the main point of the DOI's push for a "corrective-action"
plan.
The investigation, he said, was not about "voter fraud," but about a broken system that needs a real overhaul.
To a degree, Peters said he accepted that the Board -- which requires
bipartisan balance throughout its ranks -- is inherently at risk for
problems because of the way it's set up by law.
"The proof is the system isn't working," he said, later adding that
"there are things we can do even with this faulty structure to
ameliorate the process."
Ryan, when his turn came up, insisted the agency has been entirely
helpful to investigators -- to the point where he said much of the
information in the DOI report came from the Board itself in an
acknowledgement of its problems.
"You don’t get to say you 'found' my wallet or my cell phone if I hand
it to you," Ryan insisted. "I have been and will continue to be
extremely cooperative."
But Ryan (pictured center) -- as he has in the past -- argued
that the Board is a "ministerial agency" that only carries out the
policies set in election law. "I believe that that report does not
accurately reflect the reality when it comes to come certain of the
recommendations," he said.
As far as the bipartisan system, Ryan told the lawmakers it does matter
even among the rank and file, as "down the rung" employees may be, even
more so than their supervisors, in a position to cause "mischief" in
elections.
He tangled -- protractedly -- with Councilman Ritchie Torres of the
Bronx about the definition of "nepotism," saying that just because
members of the same family work at the same agency doesn't indicate de
facto corruption.
Torres countered that the agency -- which gives limited notice of job
openings when it gives them at all and hires many of its full- and
part-time workers through a patronage system linked to the county
parties -- has an inarguably high degree of family relationships in its
ranks.
Other members of the council questioned whether agency and per-diem
pollworkers are paid so poorly as to put the agency at a disadvantage in
hiring the best candidates.
Greenfield says city expects pollworkers to perform critical duties,
but "We’re going to pay you bupkis – that’s not a technical term"
Asked about Peters' implication that there could be another shoe
dropping, "I think what he said is his investigation is not complete and
it could lead to criminal charges," said Ryan, an attorney by trade.
"Speculation about criminal charges often go nowhere. There is no way
for us to tell whether it's going to happen or not happen. I would
simply say let the DOI do its job... and at the conclusion of the
process, those folks if it's found that engagement of wrongdoing
occurred, then those folks will live with the consequences of that."
City Councilman Ben Kallos of Manhattan told the News after the hearing
-- his first as chairman of Govermental Operations -- that his goal "was
to get the Board of Elections to commit to a series of items from the
Department of Investigation report that that they've been previously
unresponsive on.
"To the extent they've agreed to nearly a dozen or more items from the
report, where previously they'd responded to two, I believe that this
was successful -- but the ultimate measure of success will be where we
are in a month from now," he said.
The Council said it is now awaiting updates from the Board on issues including:
· Standardized hiring and screening process and providing this publicly and to community
· DOI's requested Corrective Action Plan to be provided within one month
· Commissioner consideration of Civil Service Exams for employees
· Report on Ballot Security in Manhattan and corrective actions
· Commitment to investigate and terminate within rules any
employee found to be requiring or punishing political activity
· Regular updates to committee on progress
· Cost estimate on using DOI background checks for high-level staff
If demonstrated incompetence isn’t enough to force change at the city Board of Elections, how about ethical no-no’s?
NY1 caught the board’s executive director, Michael Ryan,
failing to report five trips paid for by the company that makes the city’s ballot scanners.
Ryan did report four other trips, and blames clerical errors for the
ones he didn’t. He also notes that his unpaid service on an advisory
board for the company, Election Systems & Software, was cleared by
the city Conflict of Interest Board.
(Sigh: The COIB has a long record of going easy on high-level folks
while dropping the hammer on underlings for less egregious lapses — but
that’s another editorial.)
Note that Ryan soft-pedaled criticism of ES&S’s DS-200 scanning
machines after the chaos on Election Day, which saw more than 10,000
scanner complaints recorded, compared to just 2,000 in 2016. Instead, he
blamed an “untested” two-page ballot, plus the day’s high humidity, for
jamming the machines.
He also said it’s past time to replace those machines. He would, of
course, have a say in what company to go to for the new ones. Would he
favor the firm that’s been giving him freebies?
This flap might endanger Ryan’s job, which still seemed secure
despite the November nightmares. Firing him is up to the city’s 10
election commissioners — one Democrat and one Republican from each
borough, named by the county party chairmen.
In the end, those political hacks care most about patronage positions
at the board — some of the last such jobs the parties still control.
How many Election Day disasters will it take to force reform of this
system?
Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software claimed its scanners
could operate in any humidity level in a key document it filed as part
of its winning bid for the $56 million contract.
But ES&S contradicts itself in the very instruction manual it
publishes for the model of scanner the BOE purchased, filings with
authorities in other states show.
“Humidity and wetness were a factor in the paper jams on Election Day
and ES&S was not transparent in the contract about the implications
of wetness and humidity,” said Alex Camarda, an elections expert with
the government watchdog Reinvent Albany.
At a City Council hearing Tuesday, ES&S executive Judd Ryan denied humidity played a role in the Nov. 6 fiasco.
Lobbyists Who Help Win ES&S for the City's BOE
ES & S has hired powerhouse lobbyists Hank Sheinkopf, Norm Adler and
Davidoff & Malito, while Dominion has Greenberg Traurig and Bronx
megalobbyist Stanley Schlein, who had been head of the city’s Civil
Service Commission, but paid a fine to the Conflicts of Interest Board
in 2008 for allegedly misusing that office’s resources for his own legal
work.
ES & S has hired powerhouse lobbyists Hank Sheinkopf, Norm Adler and
Davidoff & Malito, while Dominion has Greenberg Traurig and Bronx
megalobbyist Stanley Schlein, who had been head of the city’s Civil
Service Commission, but paid a fine to the Conflicts of Interest Board
in 2008 for allegedly misusing that office’s resources for his own legal
work.
A lobbyist working for the company believed to have the edge to win a
multimillion-dollar contract to replace the city’s lever-operated
voting machines was once embroiled in a flap over ballot fixing.
Anthony Mangone, a Westchester-based lawyer and lobbyist hired to
help Election Systems & Software, testified that he tampered with
ballots in a voting-fraud criminal case against a political operative
working for then-state Sen. Nicholas Spano (R-Westchester) in 2002.
Mangone was called by prosecutors trying Dennis Wedra Sr. on
charges of masterminding a ballot-fixing scheme to help Spano win
third-party primaries. Having the minor-party lines increased Spano’s
chances of holding his seat in the general election in 2000.
Mangone testified that he opened up about 30 Green Party ballots,
filled them in, “sealed them up” and then had them sent to the Board of
Elections, the Journal News reported at the time.
Spano won the Green Party primary by a thin margin, but lost his seat years later.
Mangone — who declined comment — was never indicted, and Wedra was acquitted.
Government Watchdogs Call for JCOPE to Investigate Keith Wright's Arrangement as Party Chairman and Lobbyist
Watchdogs want probe of Democratic leader's lobbying job(NYP) Government
watchdogs on Friday urged the state ethics agency to investigate
whether Keith Wright is violating New York’s conflict-of-interest-law by
working for a high-powered lobbying firm while continuing to serve as
the Manhattan Democratic leader. The Post first raised questions last month about Wright’s unusual dual role —
becoming a lobbyist at Davidoff, Hutcher, & Citron while
remaining the local party boss. “Keith Wright can be a party chairman
or a lobbyist, but he can’t have it both ways,” said Susan Lerner,
executive director of Common Cause New York. “The opportunities to
wield his political position for personal enrichment, or use his
position to advance a client’s agenda present a clear conflict of
interest. He’s got to make a choice.” Wright, a former Harlem state
assemblyman, lost a bid to succeed Charles Rangel in Congress last year.
Dick Dadey of Citizens Union called Wright’s dual roles a “troubling
conflict.” “Chairman Wright cannot possibly fulfill his public role as
the county chair of Manhattan Democrats, while also serving as a private
lobbyist. Chairman Wright cannot lobby Manhattan elected city officials
for support on interests he represents, while at the same time working
with these same officials on political matters over which he has
considerable power as county chair. He can be one of the other, but not
both,” Dadey said. The advocates cited Section 73 of the Public
Officers Laws that states that political party chairpersons are
prohibited from receiving compensation for lobbying before a state or
city agency “where such appearance or rendition of services is in
connection with the adoption or repeal of any rule regulation having the
force and effect of law.” They called for JCOPE to conduct a “thorough
investigation” and provide an advisory opinion of Wright’s dual roles.
The Gonzalez Schlein Cover Up
The
City's Knew Schlein Was Involved With the Ballot Fixing At the Board in
2010 . . . He Appointed the Commissioner Who Was Forced to Resign
In
October, 2010, the Board of Elections booted executive director George
Gonzalez after revelations that he had incorrectly placed Wills on the
Republican ballot line beneath GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl
Paladino, rather than beneath Democrat Andrew Cuomo, among other
mistakes. The error would likely have cost Wills votes in the heavily
Democratic district, but ballots were eventually fixed. A number of
people close to the situation suspected the ballot placement was
politically motivated, given Gonzalez’s close connections with election
lawyer Stanley Schlein, who was serving as the attorney for Nicole
Paultre-Bell, Wills’ chief rival in the Council race. * Election Board's "Bungle George" Gonzalez Was Mayor Bloomberg's Baby(Village Voice)
The New York City
Conflicts of Interest Board
has fined Stanley K. Schlein, a prominent political lawyer, lobbyist
and former chairman of the New York City Civil Service Commission,
$15,000 for misusing city resources and personnel to perform work for
his private law practice.
The fine, the third-highest in the board’s history, was part of a settlement with Mr. Schlein, who admitted wrongdoing in an affidavit that was released by the board.
The board said that
Mr. Schlein acknowledged using workers at the Civil Service Commission
to perform “non-city tasks” for him while on city time. The statement
said that workers used computers, telephones and various machines to do
work related to Mr. Schlein’s private law practice. The board said that
Mr. Schlein had workers making more than 2,000 calls for matters
unrelated to the commission from January 2004 to September 2006.
A Seasoned Bronx Power Broker Looks to Rise With Carl Heastie
he
NY Post Missed the Fact That Wright Appoints BOE A Commissioner Who Has
Great Power On Challengers to Elected Officials Remaining On the
Ballot
"Under the eye of Assemblyman Keith Wright, chairman of
the New York County Democratic Committee, members voted unanimously to
nominate Jeanine Johnson, his chief of staff and attorney—who received a
drunk driving charge last year, according to the New York Post." NY Obsever
Wright won’t be the first political party chairman from New York City to
earn a living as a lobbyist. Stanley Friedman, a former Bronx County
Democratic leader, was a registered lobbyist for taxi- fleet owners. In
1986, Friedman paid for his double-dealing when he was convicted of
corruption charges in a wide-ranging scheme to defraud the city Parking
Violations Bureau. He served four years in prison and was released in
1992 before landing a job running a hotel on Staten Island.
A Look Back At the Manhattan Democratic Reform Movement
The state assembly held a hearing on election reform
Verified account @RosaGoldensohn
Embattled city Board of Elections Director Mike Ryan heard his agency
called a “national embarrassment” during a City Council hearing
Tuesday, where legislators didn’t buy his endless excuses for
the chaos on Election Day.
Ryan cited the new perforated ballots, old scanners, untrained poll
workers and an antiquated state election law for hours-long waits that
snarled voting on Nov. 6.
“The first step to fixing the problem is admitting that you have a
problem,” said Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who ripped Ryan for
offering up “excuse after excuse after excuse.”
Johnson repeated his call for Ryan to step down. But only the Board
of Elections’ 10 political party-appointed commissioners have the power
to remove him.
“We’ll keep pushing that,” Johnson said.
Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) chimed in, saying, “It is nothing
short of a national embarrassment that a city so great runs its
elections so poorly.”
Ryan apologized for initially
blaming high voter turnout
for the long lines and instead claimed that state-mandated perforated
ballots were “the major cause of the increased ballot jams” and
“presented a series of problems never before experienced by the board or
anywhere in the country.”
The BOE turned down $20 million from the city in 2016, in part
because the deal came with conditions, including more poll-worker
training, he said.
But on Tuesday, Ryan called for more staff to clear machine jams at
every poll site; replacing paid volunteers with municipal employees as
poll workers; and revisions in state law to allow technology upgrades.
Committee holds seven-minute meeting after widespread Election Day complaints.
If members of the New York City Board of Elections were concerned about
the broken machines and long lines
on Election Day that turned some New Yorkers away from exercising their
right to vote, they sure aren’t showing it. The ten-member board’s
first public meeting since Election Day lasted just seven minutes and 20
seconds, and voters’ woes weren’t even mentioned – except for when a
board member piped up to defend
much-maligned BOE Executive Director Michael Ryan.
More About Stany Schlein
More About Global Strategy Group
Campaign Lobbyists Control A Secret Shadow Government
True News (The Bund): NY Corrupt Party Boss Crowley 7896
It's a depressing-as-hell comment on people whose job it is to collect and count ballots: Leaders of the New York City Board of Elections always hope for low turnout, because they simply can't handle large number of voters coming out to exercise the franchise.
Which is why when New Yorkers, bless them, turned out in droves for Tuesday's midterm election, the system broke down at polling place after polling place.
Scanning machines jammed and were taken offline for hours, apparently because some ballots had a little water on them. (Who'da thunk it might rain? On planet Earth?)
Paper poll books, as usual, dragged out the check-in process. (You want an electronic database of voter names? Sorcery!)
Real structural changes, however, won’t come until the New York City Board of Elections is demolished and rebuilt anew as a nonpartisan entity.
To fix New York City’s election mess, Albany needs to create a nonpartisan body.
Politicians responded, speaking up for their constituents. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson called for New York City Board of Elections Executive Director Michael Ryan
to resign. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams held a
hastily scheduled press conference to call for a series of reforms, including an immediate investigation from the state and city into voting problems, better-trained poll workers and different technology.
New York City’s chronically mismanaged elections long predate Tuesday’s midterm. In the September primaries, longtime voters showed up to find their names were
no longer on the voting rolls. In just the most egregious example from the previous election, 200,000 voters were
illegally purged from the rolls in 2016.
Relatively few New Yorkers understand that the Board of Elections’ failure to administer elections properly is a function of its design; party loyalty has long been prized over competence. The mayor and City Council have relatively little say over how New York City’s board operates. It’s an arm of the state Board of Elections, and therefore governed by state law.
The administration of the city Board of Elections is the worst in the state, in part because it is entirely political. It is the last bastion of political patronage in city government, a remnant of the machine era.
Ten commissioners – one Republican, one Democrat per borough – govern the board. The 10 commissioners get together to appoint an executive director, who is now the aforementioned Michael Ryan. Ryan, a
Staten Island Democrat who has run for office before, was appointed in 2013. The City Council makes appointments with recommendations from local political parties.
Staffers at the Board of Elections do not pass a civil service test or face the vetting of a typical city employee. They are chiefly tied to the local Democratic or Republican party, and poll workers are recommended for jobs by party officials or elected officials. There is virtually no way to land a job at the Board of Elections without a political connection of some kind. Office staffers are hired through commissioner recommendations and connection to county political machines.
An estimated 48.1 percent of eligible voters cast ballots
After a Chaotic Election, City Leaders and Watchdogs Call for a System Overhaul (NYT)
The two-page ballot, necessitated by stupid ballot questions and stupid judicial elections, meant twice as much paper for the scanners to scan. (Newsflash: An eight-year-old device designed solely to scan paper can't do it consistently.) Expect an even bigger mess when the machines' warranty expires in 2020, just when the next presidential election comes around.
It's all par for the course from the boss-run patronage pit, where borough party chiefs pick the commissioners.
This terrible status quo persists even as New York's supposedly enlightened citizens tsk-tsk about electoral dysfunction and shenanigans in Georgia, Kansas, Wisconsin and other states. Shame on us.
The state Legislature must dismantle and rebuild the city's Board of Elections.
And it can wait no longer to offer in the Empire State what is already law of the land in 37 states: early voting.
It's egregiously undemocratic that single parents, people working hourly wages and any number of other would-be voters who have a hard time getting to the polls on a Tuesday have no other way to cast a ballot. Especially when Election Day snafus throw wrenches in the works.
The real role of each commisisoner is to help the party leader that appointed him or her. It is very curious that the good government groups are not demanding changes from elected leaders, who have done all they can do to hid from responsibility of the corruption and incompetence of the BOE and are the only ones who can make real changes at the board. Pols only care about one thing getting reelected. The BOE is their flu shot against challengers. They will not change the BOE without a strong public protest.
10 Areas Where DOI Can Investigate the BOE
The BOE was designed by Boss Tweed and his success to keep party leaders in control of who gets elected. Over time the city's establishment has made peace with the bosses and joined there control star chamber. The BOE is filled with a bunch of patronage appointments by the county leader. Friends, relatives and political supporters who have demonstrated that they cannot count or run elections.
To fix the board of elex (NYP, 2012)
The city Board of Elections is taking it on the chin once again, this time for its alleged mishandling of the vote count in the race between Rep. Charlie Rangel, state Sen. Adriano Espaillat and three others.
Did you think that there was no way to botch an election in this age of electronic voting machines and paper audit trails? Unfortunately, with the Board of Elections and the state laws that govern it, snafus are built-in.
It looks like the Election Night problems in this race were a result of a bizarre city BOE rule — but this controversy is a good chance to see the mess the whole agency has become.
Yesterday, I watched the BOE properly conduct the count and certification process in The Bronx and Manhattan. While the Espaillat camp has every right to contest any number of issues, the scandal here is not about supposed Bronx bunglers.
The city Board of Elections is best understood as a pyramid built upon the Peter Principle (the rule that people tend to be promoted to their level of incompetence).
From its top managers all the way down to the Election Day poll workers — the public face of the agency — everyone at the Board is a political appointee.
Government agencies are usually headed by political appointees with little specialized knowledge of their agencies — but they typically have an experienced, professional deputy to run things.
Not so, the city Board of Elections or its borough offices. Many staffers
are competent and dedicated workers — but not enough. The dominant role of political patronage is why BOE is lucky to get B-team talent; add in wounds inflicted by state law, and you’ve got real, systemic problems.
One start on fixing things would be to give the mayor control of the BOE, with City Council approval required for appointment of any chief clerk, executive director or deputy executive director.
That way, we’d be able to hold
someone to account when things go wrong.
Another improvement — in a bill from Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh and Sen. Martin Golden — would modernize and streamline the Election Night canvass procedure and other poll-closing tasks. End the requirement to manually transcribe results onto tally sheets, and let voting-machine memory sticks be used to report unofficial tallies to news organizations.
That bill passed the Assembly but the Senate failed to act. If it had become law, we’d have avoided the time-consuming and error-prone process that produced the Election Night snafu in this race.
Other ideas might work.
But drastic reform is necessary, from the state Board of Elections down to the county level. The agency needs a good stock of nonpartisan professional staffers. The election law must be modernized, too.
Bureaucratic and partisan paralysis is the root of the BOE’s persistent problems, which erode public confidence in our elections.
If politicians won’t reform, modernize and upgrade the agency, the voting public should demand it. And Gov. Cuomo could do worse than to make restoring public confidence in the integrity of the election process his next crusade.
