Legislators to Introduce Bill to Reform New York City Board of Elections

*Reposted from Gotham Gazette. Written by Ethan Geringer-Sameth.  (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office) *

State lawmakers are amending a bill that could change the make-up and management structure of the New York City Board of Elections in an attempt to make the troubled agency more effective and accountable.

"We've been working with both the State Board of Election for guidance, many election lawyers, many people familiar with the problems that the city has had forever with their elections. And I think that we've come up with a good model," said the bill's State Senate sponsor, Senator Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, in a Wednesday interview on Gotham Gazette’s Max Politics podcast.

Krueger said that she and Assembly sponsor Nily Rozic, a Queens Democrat, plan to introduce the new version of their Board of Elections reform legislation in the coming weeks and expressed cautious optimism about passing it this legislative session.

The New York City Board of Elections has been criticized for years for recurring calamities that have plagued New York City elections cycle after cycle – poor interpretation services, long lines at the ballot box, misprinted absentee ballots, an illegal voter purge; the list goes on. In many cases, a tradition of political patronage and nepotism has led to incompetence, enabled by the Board's explicitly partisan structure, lack of professionalization, and weak oversight from city and state officials.

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