New York Times Editorial: Voting and the City

October 27, 2008

For all the focus on balloting problems in Ohio and Florida, New Yorkers should not be surprised to encounter some glitches when they try to cast ballots next week. Only it won’t necessarily be the voting machines that will be to blame, at least not the mechanical ones.

Board of ElectionsElections in New York City are managed by an arcane and secretive body — the New York City Board of Elections — that, in turn, is controlled by party leaders in the city’s five boroughs. Over the years, they have turned it into a nest of good old-fashioned patronage that Boss Tweed and the boys down at Tammany Hall would have admired.

Because of late mailings to voters, thousands of absentee ballots might not be received in time to be postmarked by the deadline of Nov. 3. A purge of more than 30,000 voters has raised questions about how many people were mistakenly dropped from the city’s official lists.

And when the elections offices were deluged with new registrations — 200,000 in the last two weeks before the registration deadline — they apparently had difficulty coping.

As a result, many new voters might not find their names on the rolls. Some may be on supplementary lists, but others could be required to vote on provisional ballots, never an ideal way to cast a ballot.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who often rails about the secretive nature of city’s elections board, also made things worse in the short term. He cut city funds to the board and failed to spring for extra temporary employees to help with the expected crowds. Mr. Bloomberg is right that the city needs a better elections operation, but the mayor should have passed along enough emergency funds to help voters on Election Day.

The real scandal for city voters would be if everybody forgets after the election just how bad this system really is. Ideally, it should be junked in favor of a nonpartisan board and civil servants who serve the voters. But such changes require a constitutional amendment, a near impossibility when so much patronage is involved.

For now, the most important reform would be for this board to open its books immediately to allow a full airing of its operations. Then the mayor, the comptroller, the city’s voting rights groups and even the public could start holding the elections board accountable.