Only 1% showed up to vote early

AMNY 

Just 44,611 New Yorkers took advantage of the nine-day early voting period for the June 27 primary elections for City Council, Queens and Bronx district attorney and several judgeships, according to unofficial tallies from the city Board of Elections (BOE).

That means only about 1.3% of the city’s roughly 3.6 million registered Democratic and Republican voters checked-in at over 100 early voting sites spread across the city over the period.

The sad showing among New Yorkers voting early could be due to this being an off-year election, with no higher ticket races for citywide, statewide or national office on the ballot and the City Council having just run for reelection two years ago. The short-turnaround for reelecting all 51 council members, which usually takes place every four years, is a result of last year’s redistricting, where the council map was redrawn in accordance with the biennial U.S Census.

Further adding to the low early voting turnout, this year saw only a handful of competitive races across the four of the five boroughs — with no primaries at all in Staten Island.

Ben Weinberg, director of public policy at the good government group Citizens Union, said about two-thirds of the City Council races this year are uncontested, so the low turnout is “unsurprising.”

“Many New Yorkers don’t even have anything on their ballots, or they might only have stuff like judicial delegates and positions that usually people are not really familiar with,” Weinberg said.

 

 

Party transfer crashers might effect August primary elections

 

 NY Post

The Democratic Party’s gerrymander debacle has created an extraordinary situation: New Yorkers are allowed to switch their party affiliation at the ballot booth on Aug. 23 to vote in another party’s primary elections. 

Under normal circumstances, a voter had a Feb. 14 deadline to change party affiliation for primary elections scheduled in June.

But since judges nullified the Democrats’ partisan gerrymandered district maps — which GOP critics labeled a Hochulander since Gov. Kathy Hochul signed off on them — for Congress and state Senate and ordered primary elections on Aug. 23 based on districts redrawn by a court special master, that deadline no longer applies.

Registered independent or unaffiliated voters can join a party to vote in a contested primary race and registered Republicans or Democrats could temporarily change their party affiliation and crash another party’s primary races for Congress or state Senate. 

For example, Republicans or independents could decide to re-enroll in the Democratic Party to vote in the contested primary between Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney and Suraj Patel in the 12th Congressional District covering the East and West sides of  Manhattan.

Or Republicans or unaffiliated voters could switch registration to Democrat to vote in the crowded 10th Congressional District primary covering lower Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn. Candidates include Councilwoman Carlina Rivera, Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, House impeachment lawyer Dan Goldman, Rep. Mondaire Jones, former Congresswoman and Brooklyn DA Elizabeth Holtzman and Brooklyn Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon, among others.

 

No citizenship, no vote

NY Post 

A New York City law allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections was struck down Monday by a judge who said it violated both the state constitution and various provisions of state law.

Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio also issued a permanent injunction that bars the city Board of Elections from letting around 800,000 non-citizen residents register to vote.

In a 13-page ruling, Porzio said city officials can’t “obviate” restrictions in the state constitution, which “expressly states that only citizens meeting the age and residency requirements are entitled to register and vote in elections.”

“There is no statutory ability for the City of New York to issue inconsistent laws permitting non-citizens to vote and exceed the authority granted to it by the New York State Constitution,” he wrote.

Porzio said the city’s move also violated sections of the state’s Election Law and Municipal Home Rule Law.

City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island), among the plaintiffs who challenged the law, hailed the ruling, saying it “validates those of us who can read the plain English words of our state constitution” and accused the measure’s proponents of seeking to “skirt the law for political gain.”

“Opposition to this measure was bipartisan and cut across countless neighborhood and ethnic lines, yet progressives chose to ignore both our constitution and public sentiment in order to suit their aims,” he said in a prepared statement.

NYC Council plans to give voting rights to immigrants residing in the city and country for 30 days

Politics NY 

City Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan) led other elected officials and several dozen advocate organizations in a City Hall Park rally Tuesday celebrating a measure that will allow roughly 800,000 non-citizens living in New York City for at least 30 days to vote in all city elections.

The measure dubbed “Our City, Our Vote ” now has a veto-proof supermajority 34 out of 51 City Council supporting the legislation guaranteeing passage at the council’s stated meeting on Dec. 9. It comes as nearly half of New York City households have a member with green card status or other undocumented status. 

It also comes as a number of city lawmakers – once part of those immigrant households themselves – are leading the movement to pass the bill.

“My mom had all of her kids in a public hospital,” said City Councilmember and Brooklyn Borough President-elect Antonio Reynoso, who attended the rally. “My mom couldn’t vote for a representative that could ensure a quality education for her kids.”

Reynoso’s family came from the Dominican Republic and raised him in Williamsburg, which he now represents in the council. 

“It’s about time that we finally get an opportunity where we show these representatives what we want, what we need and what we deserve at the voting booth, where it most matters,” Reynoso said. 

He thanked Rodriguez and the work of the New York Immigrant Coalition, who have been organizing the rallies and the letters as part of the campaign to get the bill passed. 

While Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he has “mixed feelings” about the bill because he feared that allowing noncitizens to vote might remove the incentive for people to become full citizens, Mayor-elect Eric Adams has voiced support for it.

Under the proposed legislation the New York City Board of Elections (BOE) would issue a separate voter registration form for green cardholders and other noncitizens who have the right to work. Those voters would then fill out a ballot with only New York City offices on it at the polls. 

The bill also calls for training poll workers and community education campaigns to ensure every voter receives the correct ballot.

Constituents of the grave

   NY Post

Mail-in ballots were submitted to the city Board of Elections in the name of at least two long-dead Democratic voters in southern Brooklyn — where a tight race is still going on, The Post has learned.

The legitimacy of absentee ballots has become an issue in the close City Council race in the area’s 43rd District, where Republican Brian Fox leads Democratic incumbent Justin Brannan by 255 votes, with at least 1,622 such ballots yet to be counted.

Fox’s shocking lead over Brannan — who has been campaigning to become the next powerful council speaker — appears to be part of the Republican election wave that swept out Democrats in parts of the region and nation.

The district includes the neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Bath Beach, Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst. 

Board of Elections records show that someone requested a ballot in the name of Francesca Patinella — a Democrat born in 1926 and who died March 24, 2010 — in September for November’s general election.

The city elections agency then wrote on its Absentee Ballot Tracker web portal Sept. 28, addressing the dead woman, “We have your ballot. Your valid absentee ballot was received at the BOE.”

Another mail-in ballot was submitted in the name of Yvonne Absey, who died March 2, 2012. Absey, who also was born in 1926, is recorded as requesting an absentee ballot in September, according to BOE records.

“We have received your ballot,” the BOE responded in Absey’s case Oct. 4.

A day later, the BOE declared that the Absey ballot was “invalid” because the voter was “deceased.”

The primary results are...still not in

From QNS:

According to the newly released results for the borough president race, incumbent Donovan Richards currently holds the top spot with 51.1 percent of the vote (78.752 votes) after three rounds of RCV counting. Challenger Elizabeth Crowley, the former District 30 councilwoman, sits in second place with 48.9 percent of the vote (75,349 votes).

So it looks like Liz and Don almost evenly split Jim's #2 votes!

Here are the current council leaders for the Dems.

District 19: Tony Avella

District 20: Sandra Ung

District 21: Francisco Moya

District 22: Tiffany Caban

District 23: Linda Lee

District 24: James Gennaro

District 25: Shekar Krishnan

District 26: Julie Won

District 27: Nantasha Williams

District 28: Adrienne Adams

District 29: Lynn Schulman

District 30: Robert Holden

District 31: Selvena Brooks-Powers

District 32: Felicia Singh

Results are not yet official until thousands of absentee ballots have been counted which is expected to be completed and released by July 12.

@LogicalDonaldTrump

 

Queens Post

 Former US President Donald Trump has blasted the New York City Board of Elections handling of the Democratic primary mayoral vote, labeling it as “an embarrassment and total mess.”

Trump, in two separate emails sent out to his supporters Wednesday morning, ripped the Board for revealing overnight that more than 135,000 test ballots were included as part of the count – thereby plunging the vote into disarray.

The Queens native pounced on the confusion as justification for his own claims – and those of many of his supporters – that the 2020 Presidential Election was a “scam and a hoax.”

“Just like in the 2020 Presidential Election, it was announced overnight in New York City that vast irregularities and mistakes were made and that Eric Adams, despite an almost insurmountable lead, may not win the race,” Trump wrote in his first email.

“The fact is, based on what has happened, nobody will ever know who really won.”

Adams led Maya Wiley by around 9 percent and Kathryn Garcia by around 12 percent in the first-round tally results released last week in the crucial primary. The tabulation was based on the number of voters who had ranked each candidate first on their ballots.

The vote was thrown into chaos Tuesday when the Board of Elections released its preliminary results – only to yank them five hours later. The count was supposed to allocate ranked-choice votes and saw Garcia leapfrogging Wiley into second place and narrowing Adams’ lead in the process.

However, that count included thousands of test ballots that should not have been tallied.

The Board of Elections attributed the discrepancy to a technical error caused by a test run of the ranking system that had not been cleared from its computing system before the latest tabulations, according to The City.

Nevertheless, Trump was quick to take advantage of the controversy and ridiculed the city’s election process.

“Watch the mess you are about to see in New York City, it will go on forever. They should close the books and do it all over again, the old-fashioned way, when we had results that were accurate and meaningful,” Trump wrote.

It's taking a year for the Board Of Elections to find a company to handle ranked choice voting polling technology

 

THE CITY

The city’s Board of Elections is looking for a company to provide software for the new ranked-choice voting system amid calls from some officials to delay the ballot changeup beyond this year’s crucial mayoral election.

The board issued a request for proposals Nov. 16 to find a firm with the digital know-how to tabulate votes after New Yorkers rank candidates in order of preference on their ballots. Interested companies must respond by Monday.

The deadline comes less than two months before the new system is scheduled to be used in a special election for a Queens City Council seat — and follows widespread criticism of the board’s poor handling of mail-in ballots during the pandemic.

City poll sites use DS 200 ballot scanners operated by Election Systems & Software, which also handles ranked choice voting in Maine and Minneapolis. The Omaha, Neb.-based company is a potential candidate to do the same here, said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York.

The nonprofit Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is another strong option, according to Lerner, who is a leading supporter of the new voting system. The North Carolina-based outfit has open-source software that the Board of Elections could likely use at a low cost or even for free, Lerner said.

“There are good possibilities,” she added. 

 

 

 

New York City Board Of Elections are very shitty at math

 

NY Post

The embattled city Board of Elections mismanaged key facets of its early voting program, The Post has learned, including allocating ballot scanners with little regard for demand and stuffing so many voters into balloting sites that it overwhelmed its system.

The examination of the BOE’s preparations comes as thousands of New York City voters again faced hours-long lines Wednesday to cast their votes in the hotly contested 2020 general election, giving the patronage-ladened agency its latest black eye.

Take two locations in Brooklyn: The BOE only sent five ballot scanners to the New York City College of Technology on Jay Street, even though it assigned more than 60,000 voters to the site for early voting. And Barclay’s Center was allocated the same number of scanners, despite being the early voting spot for another 32,000.

That pattern repeats in Manhattan. The Board of Elections provided only five scanners to the early voting polling site at the Church of St. Anthony of Padua in SoHo, despite assigning it nearly 81,000 voters — roughly one scanner per 16,000 voters.

Just a seven-minute walk away, BOE also set up its smallest early voting polling site in the city at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts near Washington Square Park. However, officials set up three scanners for the 8,300 voters who can use the site — roughly one scanner for every 2,800 voters.

The Post sent reporters to 15 early voting sites in the two boroughs and found the scanners were unevenly distributed and that even busiest sites had no more than seven such devices.

“It makes no sense, it shows you how poor their planning is and how unprepared they were for people to use early voting,” said John Kaehny, the executive director of the good-government group Reinvent Albany. “I think the BOE has completely misallocated resources and failed to the simple math to figure out how many poll books and scanners it needs based on the number of likely voters.”

Ready on the left

Queens Chronicle

Absentee counts are proving a repeat of the blue progressive wave of 2018.

As of Wednesday night, the absentee ballot count yielded several more victories for insurgent Democratic primary candidates for Assembly across western and southern Queens.

Progressive challengers Jenifer Rajkumar, Jessica González-Rojas and Zohran Mamdani each claimed victory over incumbents, based on unofficial counts. The outlier to the trend is senior Assemblymember Jeff Aubry (D-Corona), who was able to expand his lead over challenger Hiram Monserrate in the aftermath of election day.

The next step is for the Board of Elections to certify the results. The general election is Nov. 3.

Rajkumar, an Indian-American lawyer from Woodhaven, came out with 3,624 votes to Assemblyman Mike Miller’s (D-Woodhaven) 1,469 total.

Rajkumar’s apparent win in Assembly District 38, which stretches over Woodhaven, Ridgewood, Richmond Hill, Ozone Park and Glendale, would make her the first South Asian woman to be elected to the state Legislature. She noted that her campaign came out on top in every single election district, and that she won by the largest margin of any Assembly candidate in the election cycle.

“Our campaign had been able to achieve the near impossible by winning with a margin of 27 percentage points during a global pandemic. When the people of South Queens needed a leader, our office was the first to show up, setting up a 24/7 Coronavirus response team that operates in seven languages,” said Rajkumar. “As President John F. Kennedy once said: ‘The life of service is a constant test of your will.’”

Affidavit votes disqualified by the Board of Elections pushed Katz's slim victory

NBC News

 Eighty percent of the approximately 2,800 affidavit ballots cast in the 2019 Democratic primary for Queens DA were disqualified — but it’s not clear how many of the voided voters still don't realize their ballots didn’t count.

 The I-Team obtained a list of more than 2,300 disqualified voters.

Though the list was not confirmed by the Board of Elections, two sources close to the ongoing court challenge between Tiffany Caban and Melinda Katz did confirm the list.

Some voters on the list said the Board of Elections has so far failed to notify them — even as a high stakes court battle proceeds to determine if Katz's narrow victory over Caban should stand.

 “I have not received any such notification (or any mail otherwise) from the Board of Elections,” said Sophie Epstein, a registered Democrat who said her vote for Tiffany Caban disqualified because she failed to check the “Democrat” box on her affidavit ballot.

 Mark Miller, a long-time Astoria resident, told the I-Team his vote for Caban was voided after a poll worker advised him to cast an affidavit ballot at the wrong polling place.

“We should be finding reasons to count the votes, right? Not reasons to not count the votes,” Miller said.

A deeply flawed candidate

From The Forum:

Let’s start with that old adage “Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are.” If you buy that then we can make our case very simply.

Platta’s buddy, and campaign consultant, is none other than former City Councilman Dennis Gallagher. You remember him: In the middle of his second term he was forced out of office because in a drunken rage he sexually assaulted a woman he had coaxed into his district office after which he burned her body with a cigarette.

But okay, let’s say it’s not fair to judge Platta on the basis of who his good buddy is.

In May 2017, Platta was arrested and charged with aggravated harassment after a female doctor threatened to expose his marital infidelity.

“If you tell anyone about my cheating, I will kill you and your family and ruin your life; I will send a patient to your practice to make false reports against you and ruin your career.”

That’s a direct quote from Platta straight from an official court document: The People of the State of New York, Plaintiff, v. Platta, Slawomir, Defendant.

In order to get on the ballot for the upcoming primary, Platta circulated a petition for a third party line called the No Homeless Shelter Party at a homeless shelter rally. The problem is that Platta told unsuspecting rally attendees that they were signing a petition to speak out about stopping Mayor de Blasio from creating any more homeless shelters.

When one such signer, Scott Jordan, realized he had been duped, he decided to become an objector to the petition at the NYC Board of Elections because the signatures were obtained through fraud and misrepresentation. Platta’s answer to that was to put out a media hit piece against an innocent constituent of the district and muddy his good name by circulating it through the district and on social media.

By the way, did we mention that Platta was collecting signatures personally, yet when the volume was submitted to the BOE, none of the sheets he carried were witnessed by him—a fatal flaw in the petition process.

These revelations are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Mr. Platta, who was kicked off his bogus "No Homeless Shelter" party line by the BOE yesterday. Naturally, he was endorsed by the Queens Ledge.

Charter changes up for discussion

This is to let you know that the city's Charter Review Commission is having a series of meetings in the boroughs next week, Queens' turn is Thursday evening, July 26 at Queens Borough Hall. The Charter is basically New York City's "constitution" that lays out the broad parameters for administration and operation of the city. Please see the attached flyer for additional information. - Jessica Douglas, Queens Borough Director of the Mayor's Community Affairs office

Community Boards:
1) Whether to place term limits for Community Board members as a method to encourage diversity.
2) How to Standardize and enhance the existing appointment process
3) Provide additional support in resources; particularly as it relates to urban planning
4) Things to adopt methods to ensure Community Boards are representative of the community they serve.

Campaign Finance:
1) The Reduction of spending limits (no amounts provided).
2) Increasing the public match ( no ratio provided).
3) Look into the timeline for implementation given that candidates are raising money under the current system.

Elections
1) Language accessibility ( providing interpreters, translation of ballots and materials, and community advisory groups)
2) Instant Runoff Voting - Look to implement within local primary elections and for citywide elections (where runoffs is provided) or to extend to all offices (Borough Presidents and City Council offices)

A Citywide Civic Engagement Program
1) how such an entity or office could support, supplement, or coordinate the City’s existing efforts in this area, including the recently announced DemocracyNYC initiative.
2) how such an entity or office could facilitate the expansion of participatory budgeting while working within legal and operational constraints
3) where such an entity or office should be situated;.
4) whether such an entity or office should be independent and non-partisan.

Redistricting for City Council Seats
1) In light of the lack of DOJ oversight, solicit testimony from experts and affected communities about the effects of districting process on racial and ethnic minorities and their voting power.
2) Look at altering the Districting Commission to promote independence, including the appointment process.
3) Studying whether there are ways to counteract effects of an undercount in the next census.

Yet another turd that won't stay flushed

From the NY Post:

Scandal-scarred former New York City Comptroller John Liu is attempting a political comeback — emboldened by the stunning upset pulled off last week by Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, sources said.

Liu and his hard-left supporters from TrueBlueNY are racing to gain 3,000 signatures so he can run against incumbent Sen. Tony Avella of Queens in the Democratic primary Sept. 13.

The deadline to submit the petitions is Thursday at midnight, according to the city’s Board of Elections.

Avella is the last member of the Independent Democratic Conference to be challenged by a Democrat, even after the mainstream party called a truce with the rogue group that aligned itself with the GOP in a power-sharing agreement.

Holden's ballot lead stands

From NY1:

City Councilman Elizabeth Crowley acknowledged Wednesday night that her opponent's margin of victory held during a tally of absentee ballots Wednesday in a very close Queens city council race.

The Board of Elections said it will not certify the result until it certifies all the races, as it does every election.

Sources from Crowley's opponent, Republican Robert Holden, have told NY1 that he has won the race for the 30th city council district.

Holden declared victory on Election Day, even though he was ahead by only 133 votes.

It appears his lead has grown by four votes, although the total has not been confirmed.

Well this is getting very interesting. And check these quotes from Holden in the Times Ledger:

“This mayor wants a one party socialist Marxist regime and anyone who thinks differently than him is the enemy,” Holden said. “He judges people based on labels and that is something he should be against. Instead he bad mouths the Republican Party as no good and that’s the type of approach that put this country in such a divisive mess. Did I run on the Republican line? Yeah. Am I a registered Democrat? Yeah, but the bottom line is I’m apolitical. I’m a civic leader and I’m going to work with anyone that can help my community and my constituen­ts.”

Holden added the mayor was wrong to launch the 14.7 mile Select Bus Service route on Woodhaven and Cross Bay boulevards Monday.

“It’s such a disaster. People are sitting in traffic jams for hours. It’s just another bad policy from this administration, and one of the reasons I got so many votes,” Holden said. “He wants to take away our cars, he doesn’t understand Queens at all. The traffic is crippling all over the borough and all we get is more bike lanes and more SBS lanes. The administration is taking away one of our basic rights — the freedom of movement — you can’t just get in your car and go anymore.”

Audit reveals that BOE is a mess

From the Times Ledger:

A report from city Comptroller Scott Stringer exposed massive dysfunction within the Board of Elections in a report which audited its performance over the course of three elections in 2016.

The city, which has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the nation, has disenfranchised the public through dumped voter rolls and widespread inefficiency at over 53 percent of the poll sites reviewed where state and federal election laws were broken, according to the audit promised by Stringer in April 2016.

The report revealed that out of 156 polling sites, 14 percent had mishandled affidavit ballots for people eligible to vote but who may not on the rolls. One site failed to inform voters of the option to vote via affidavit, a violation of federal law, and thus “disenfranc­hising” individuals.

Up to 10 percent of poll sites showed many voters went unassisted when issues arose. One example given by the report said a scanner had rejected a ballot and the distracted poll site worker did not notice until the person had already left. Staff at the site were forced to void the ballot and the person’s vote was not counted.

They're all connected

More from Progress Queens:

In Queens, faith in Government institutions was revealed to be severely lacking after New York City Council candidate Paul Graziano filed a civil petition in New York State Supreme Court for Queens County, alleging criminality, such as fraud and forgery, in the ballot petitioning process carried out by incumbent Councilmember Paul Vallone (D-Bayside). On the Queens Crap blog, which attracts some of Queens most formidable civic-minded activists, some of the comments posted by readers to news of the court filing expressed concern that the justices of the Queens County court system would not be able to independently oversee the Court case. To some Government reform activists in Queens, the Graziano Court petition served as a symbolic Rorschach test, providing insight into the public's lack of faith in the Queens County court system. Many comments on the Queens Crap post raised questions about the "allegiance" that justices in the Queens County court system owed to leaders of the Queens Democratic County Committee, expressed concern that Mr. Graziano would not be able to receive a "fair hearing," and invoked the resignation that the "the [Queens] Machine will work to stop this at all costs."

Concerns about possible interference by the Queens Democratic County Committee were rooted in the fact that the County committee supports the reelection of incumbents as a way to earn political allegiance and to create a lockstep on power and authority over local elected officials. The role of money in politics is also a factor, because the County committee can marshal resources to support the reelection of incumbents, leaving primary challengers at a distinct financial disadvantage. Indeed, as reported by Progress Queens, Mr. Graziano ultimately discontinued his Court petition due to the high anticipated costs of having to litigate his case, reaffirming the belief to some Government reform activists that the role of money in politics even extends to being able to successfully petition the Government for a redress of grievances. The allegations made by the Graziano campaign against the Vallone campaign heightened new fears about the integrity of the voting process in Queens. In the 2016 election cycle, it was revealed that the New York City Board of Elections purged large numbers of voters without cause, triggering the filing of a Federal civil rights complaint in Brooklyn Federal Court that was later joined by both the U.S. Attorney's Office, headed at that time then by Mr. Capers, and by the office of the State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D-New York). To some Government reform activists, it has appeared that Queens voters have been disenfranchised for two years in a row, first, in 2016, when some voters were purged from the rolls, and, second, this year, when Federal prosecutors did nothing to investigate the allegations of criminality in the Graziano petition against the Vallone campaign, thereby allowing voters to cast their ballots for an incumbent, who may later be investigated for wrong-doing, although there is no indication that Federal prosecutors are presently conducting any such investigation. The press office of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn did not answer advance questions submitted by Progress Queens for this report.

Hiram's base has lost its polling site

From the Daily News:

Allies of Hiram Monserrate have lost a last-minute bid to have a polling site reestablished for the Democratic primary in LeFrak City in Queens, where the convicted felon enjoys broad support.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Andrea Masley ruled earlier this week that it was too late for her to move a polling site back to LeFrak, where New Yorkers had cast their votes for 50 years.

But she criticized the Board of Elections for moving the voting site from LeFrak to two other locations outside of the housing complex, writing that "moving poll sites is no joke" and that the timing of the change had not yet been properly explained.

"This court is confounded by the BOE's decision to move 6,071 voters to two new voting sites," Masley wrote.

In May, the Board of Elections announced new sites three-quarters of a mile and one-third of a mile away from the LeFrak complex, saying the original site did not meet Americans With Disabilities Act standards.

Queens Machine wants to have its cake and eat it too

Great article from Progress Queens:

The reelection campaigns of two incumbent members of the New York City Council from the Queens delegation have been beset with questions about their ballot petition signatures. Candidates wishing to appear on the ballots for political parties are required to collect ballot petition signatures from voters registered for those political parties, and the petition signatures must be verified, according to regulations.

Councilmember Paul Vallone (D-Bayside) has been taken to Court by his Democratic Party primary challenger, Paul Graziano. Mr. Graziano has alleged in a legal filing that the reëlection campaign of Councilmember Vallone collected invalid petition signatures. The civil proceeding, before New York State Supreme Court for Queens County, seeks a determination that would restrain the New York City Board of Elections from printing Councilmember Vallone's name on the Democratic Party primary ballot, amongst other relief being sought. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, 8 August at Queens County Civil Courthouse in Jamaica, Queens.

The office of Councilmember Vallone did not answer a request for an interview for this report.

A reporter making an attempt on Wednesday afternoon to inspect at the Queens Borough Office of the Board of Elections the ballot petition signatures collected by Councilmember Vallone's relection committee was turned away and was, instead, referred to an Agency spokesperson. Valerie Vazquez, a spokesperson for the Board of Elections, said that the Agency was reviewing Councilmember Vallone's signatures and would, upon the making of advance request for an appointment, arrange for a reporter to be able to inspect Councilmember's ballot petition signatures. When asked if the Board of Elections could await the outcome of Mr. Graziano's Court proceeding with about six weeks before the date of the Democratic Party primary election, Ms. Vazquez postulated that the Board of Elections could accommodate a Court decision rendered with just one week left before the Democratic Party primary election.

Other advance questions submitted in writing by Progress Queens to the general e-mail account of the Board of Elections were not answered for this report.

Mr. Graziano, who initiated the legal proceedings against the Councilmember Vallone, said that it was important that the public have confidence in campaign committees complying with election system regulations. "We have to make sure that justice is served," Mr. Graziano said.

Mr. Graziano's legal challenge of Councilmember Vallone's ballot petition signatures follows word that the majority of the ballot petition signatures collected for the Independence Party by the reelection committee of another incumbent, Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley (D-Ridgewood), have been invalidated by the Board of Elections, meaning that Councilmember Crowley will not appear on the Independence Party line in the November general election. News of the Board of Elections' determination against Councilmember Crowley was revealed on a Facebook post by Councilmember Crowley's Democratic Party primary challenger, Robert Holden. The office of Councilmember Crowley did not answer a press inquiry for an interview for this report.

Speaking generally of the allegations of misconduct in the ballot petition signature collections of various reëlection campaign committees, Mr. Graziano said, "I see this as a systemic issue. It's not just this candidate," he said, referring to Councilember Vallone.

According to information obtained by Progress Queens, there have been allegations that various campaign committees, including that of Councilmember Vallone, may have engaged in violations of regulations governing ballot petition signature collection four years ago. The allegations of violations have extended to the current election cycle, according to a source.

__________________________________________________

This stupid process of collecting signatures could be changed by the powers that be, but it was set up to discourage non-Machine candidates from running. Therefore, it is the people's duty to hold the Machine's feet to the fire when they fail to abide by the system they set up.

DeBlasio skates after blaming lawyer

From DNA Info:

Mayor Bill de Blasio broke state law when he and his subordinates steered money towards Democratic state senate campaigns — but he can't be charged with a crime because his lawyer said it was OK, according to the Manhattan District Attorney's office.

"After an extensive investigation, notwithstanding the [Board of Elections'] view that the conduct here may have violated the Election Law, this office has determined that the parties involved cannot be appropriately prosecuted, given their reliance on the advice of counsel," DA Cyrus Vance.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan also concluded an investigation into the mayor's fundraising and determined on Thursday that no criminal charges would be brought.

Well that pretty much ends our chances of not having the Dope from Park Slope around for another 4 years. Paul Massey spoke with the Tribune recently, but he's running as a Republican in a Democratic town.