Bloomberg is Right to Fume

Mayor Bloomberg has joined the chorus. Yesterday, the Mayor fumed over the New York City Board of Election's troubling disorganization, just six days before Election Day.

"We keep making suggestions, putting a sample ballot on the Web, they won't do it. What about recruiting poll workers . . . [who] have to have training ... they don't pay any attention to it. What about poll workers from good government groups rather than just political parties? You know, this is an outrage," exclaimed the Mayor.

We couldn't agree more.

Brennan Center surveys in 2003 and in 2006 revealed widespread confusion among Boards of Election in New York about whether a person with a criminal conviction is eligible to vote. Thirty-eight percent of New York's 63 Boards of Election incorrectly responded that individuals on probation cannot vote. A third of the local boards also illegally asked for documentation before allowing persons with criminal convictions to register.

But the New York City boards were among the worst offenders. Three New York City offices—New York County, Queens County, and the New York City Board—incorrectly stated that people on probation are ineligible to vote. In addition, three New York City offices—New York County, Queens County and New York City—improperly required individuals to provide documentation before registering to vote.

This confusion among New York City boards is especially disturbing, considering the majority of people coming out of prison return to the five boroughs. Once the Board of Elections gives an individual the wrong information, it is unlikely he'll follow up a second time to get the right answer and he will be improperly disenfranchised for years, if not for life. In addition, misinformation on felony disenfranchisement spreads through communities, potentially dissuading hundreds of thousands of eligible voters. (and NYC is not alone, as we recently found in the report De Facto Disenfranchisement)

It is the Board of Election's duty to train every election official on the law and registration procedures for all New Yorkers, including those who have spent time in prison. Another solution is to notify people the minute that they leave prison or parole that they are eligible to vote.

Mayor Bloomberg is worried about chaos at the polls on Election Day, and wants the city's election officials to implement changes to reduce disenfranchising voters. In his words, "the public is as badly served by this agency as any city thing or state thing that I've ever seen."

Mr. Mayor, we have a few more things to add to your wish list

New Voting Systems: New York Can't Catch A Break

This won't help New York get new voting systems any faster.

Another Absentee Ballot Error

More than 3,000 absentee ballots were mailed to voters that listed Assemblywoman RoAnn DeStito as a candidate for the Conservative Party instead of the Working Families Party according to a story in Utica's Observer Dispatch.

Times to City BOE: Open Your Books Now

Voters in New York City may face an obstacle course of issues on November 4.

As a New York Times editorial points out today: more than 30,000 voters were purged from the rolls, which raises the questions--when, how and who was dropped in error; because of late mailings to voters, absentee ballots may not be received in time to be postmarked by November 3 in order to count; and new voters may not find their names on the rolls due to a surge in registrations and a backlog of entering data.

As the Times suggests, the city Board of Elections should address these issues immediately and inform the public of the status of each. The unfortunate alternative is the status quo, i.e., silence.

Obama/Osama Is Spellcheck's Fault!

Remember the news that Upstate New York's Rensselaer County mailed a few hundred absentee ballots with the name "Osama" instead of "Obama?"

It was spellcheck's fault! Or, as the Albany Times Union's headline puts it: "Blame the computer for the Obama-Osama goof, officials say."

A report released to the Legislature about the mistake said: ""This error may have been due to a spell-check function on the operating system of the computers utilized by the Board of Elections."

Here's a reasonable question: why rely on a spellcheck program to verify names? How many last names would the most up-to-date software recognize?

While my last name is recognized, most likely due to Casey Stengel, RNY's editor "Larry Norden" would become "Larry Noreen" if spellcheck had its way.

What would your name become?

10%+ of NY Voters Purged from Roll, But When and How?

According to a story out today by the ATU's Rick Karlin, 1.6 million named were purged from the voter rolls. To put that in perspective that's more than 10% of total registered voters (using the state Board of Election enrollment figures for March.)

The issue with purges, as detailed in a recent Brennan Center report, is that they're usually done in secret. As the report details tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of voters are wrongly purged around the country; that's scary.

There may be legal issues with New York's purge under the federal National Voter Registration Act and state election law. Basically, systematic purges cannot occur within 90 days on an election. (Tell that to Colorado's Secretary of State who is using the depends-on-your-definition-of-systematic defense for their state's purge that happened within the 90-day period.) Moreover, possible duplicate names shouldn't be removed from the rolls until they are moved to an inactive list and after two federal elections pass.

New York's purge may be entirely lawful, but given the large numbers involved the Board of Elections should immediately explain how and when those names were purged.

Where in the World Is "Osama?" On Renssselar's Ballot

The Albany Times Union reported this weekend that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's last name was spelled "Osama" on 300 absentee ballots mailed in Rensselaer County last week.

According to the ATU story, a GOP Commissioner admitted that three staff members proof the ballots.

What are the chances of hitting "s" instead of the correct letter "b?" About 4% (or 3.84% to be exact).

NYPIRG's Last Chance Voter Reg

With New York's October 10 deadline for voter registration, NYPIRG has deployed more than 200 volunteers at tranist hubs across the city.

Tomorrow at 11am they're holding a press conference about the effort in the Times Square subway station.

1 Down, Still 211 to Go

Last week we posted Assemblyman Micah Kellner's ethics disclosure form and invited members of the state Legislature to send theirs to us too.

As the Observer's Azi Paybareh pointed out, there are 211 members of the Assembly and Senate left. One week later, we're still 1-212.

BC: No Position on Term Limits

From the Brennan Center homepage: The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law takes no official position on term limits. This comes after the NY Times reported today NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg "announced on Thursday he would abandon his earlier opposition to changing the term limits law and seek a third term as mayor, arguing that the economic crisis buffeting the nation called for continuity in municipal leadership." Bloomberg still maintains he supports term limits, despite his announcement to seek a third term. The Times reports that details of the legislation the mayor supports remain unclear, and many Council members are unsure how Bloomberg would alter the term limits law.

Voters Make Sure You're on the List

The state Coalition for Voter Involvement and Fair Elections is on the case of possible voter purges that may have removed people from the rolls in error.

A report released this week from Brennan Center called Voter Purges shows that the process by which people are removed from the polls is far too often done in secret and an inconsistent manner making in difficult, or in some cases, impossible to know how many eligible voters were removed in error.

While the coalition is working on the issue, Bo Lipari shrewdly recommends checking your registration. The state Board of Elections maintains a look up page. Following the steps listed on Bo's post is a good start and idea.

Assemblyman Kellner Discloses Disclosure Form

Micah Kellner, Assemblyman of the 65th district of Manhattan's Upper East Side, released his ethics disclosure form for us to post and for all to see. It's available as a PDF file download here. For the unfamiliar it's worth reading for the range of questions.

Members' ethics forms aren't readily accessible to the public. To obtain copies one must make a Freedom of Information Law request of the state Legislative Ethics Commission. And, even then, as Jeremy Peters of the New York Times reported, imporant portions are omitted.

We invite other members of the legislature to send their non-redacted disclosure forms; we'll post them too. Send to brennancenter@nyu.edu, subject line "Full Disclosure."

What's Good for the Land of Lincoln...

After a raft of corruption scandals and investigations in the state, the Illinois Senate voted unanimously to approve a ban on pay-to-play aimed at the Governor. A day later the Senate passed a measure that would extend the pay-to-play ban to themselves. It still remains to be seem what happens in the Illinois House, but these are remarkable developments considering the state's track record on reform.

Assembly Ethics Committee to Meet

The Assembly Ethics Committee will reportedly meet today. Since the proceedings are cloaked in secrecy the could be talking about a number of things. As the WXXI story points out, unlike other legislative standing committees, the Ethics Committee is not required to deliberate in public and neither their deliberations or finding are made public.

This isn't the Manhattan Project; these are our elected representatives and the public has a right to know about the work of the committee.

In fact, the legislative ethics committees, not to be confused with the similarly secretive Legislative Ethics Commission, rarely holds meetings. This stands in stark contrast to the recently created Commission on Public Integrity, which oversees the executive branch and lobbyists. The CPI holds regular public hearings and releases its opinions.

Since all four members of the legislature who either stand accused of corruption, plead guilty, await sentencing or face a trial all hail from New York City, here's an idea for a new Manhattan Project: hold public hearings on the various models for ethics reform.

Seminerio and Reform Day: Now It Can Be Told

In April of this year my former colleague Beth Foster and I had the pleasure of participating Common Cause's Reform Day of Action. Included in our list of meetings was Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio, who now stands accused of banking $500,000 for his official duties.

We spoke about the many items on the reform agenda: campaign finance, redistricting, rules and, of course, ethics.

The Assemblyman's response to our position that Albany needed reforming? "Why? What's wrong with Albany," he said rhetorically.

Good Gov't to Albany: Ethics Reform Now

Common Cause, NYPIRG, League of Women Voters of NYS and Citizens Union rally for ethics reform.

Argument for an Activist CPI

One of the quirks of ethics reform ushered through in 2007 is that the new Commission on Public Integrity (CPI), which combined the Temporary Commission on Lobbying and the Ethics Commission, has jurisdiction over the executive branch, but not the Legislature. However, CPI also has jurisdiction over lobbyists who do business with both branches of government.

As we know, the lobbying reform, called "sweeping" by the Assembly, made mostly cosmetic changes where the Legislature was concerned. And, the ethics charges others keep on coming.

The recent charges against Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio present an interesting situation, The compliant alleges that nearly $400,000 was paid to a consulting company controlled by Seminerio by a Queens hospital since 2000. According to a NewYork Times story earlier this week: "several hospital industry officials said that the hospital described in the complaint fit the profile of Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens."

Now, several of our reform colleagues have filed a request with the CPI to compel an investigation of the Seminerio matter through jurisdiction over lobbying.

I've argued before that CPI should take an activist stance with its jurisdiction and issue opinions that may only affect the executive branch, but nonetheless would serve as a warning to the Legislature. That was in the case of a city public school, er, campus naming for Queens Senator Frank Padavan, who was and is in the midst of a reelection fight tied to control of his chamber. (The city Chancellor's regulations forbid naming public school after the living, but is silent as to a campus.)

In Padavan's example, the CPI could have issued an opinion that naming public property for people serving in the executive branch is a violation of the public officers law since there is an obvious value attached. (Elected officials cannot receive extra compensation or any gift of more than nominal value.) For proof look no further than the multi-million dollar annual price tags for naming rights for the area stadiums under construction. I wasn't arguing then or now that public schools are on the order of sports stadiums, merely that naming rights have some value.

True a CPI opinion about naming public would have no force on the Legislature, however it would have served as notice by a respected body and a warning that somebody is minding the ethics store.

Tony Seminerio Makes Three

Yesterday news broke that longtime Queens Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio has been a accused of taking more than $500,000 from businesses. According to today's New York Times story: "His state ethics forms for 2005, 2006 and 2007 list him as receiving at least $1,000 each year from Marc Consultants." Actually it was quite a bit more, and--here's the important part-- for “the performance of his official duties as a member of the Assembly.”

Part of the problem is that the state's Legislative Ethics Commission, which was created as part of the Public Employees Ethics Reform Act of 2007 (PEERA), is completely opaque. Late last year Casey Hynes and Sarah Clyne Sundberg wrote for a well-researched story about the commission for the Albany Times Union:

But in the 20 years since, despite many instances of elected officials mingling private business interests with political dealings, not a single lawmaker has been sanctioned or pursued criminally through the rules.

Critics say new rules enacted this year by Gov. Eliot Spitzer and other state leaders, who have characterized their work as the most sweeping ethics and lobbying changes in state history, may again fall short.

Lawmakers still control who gets appointed to oversight commissions, enabling the leaders to effectively police themselves through politicized committees whose jobs are to ferret out wrongdoing and report suspected crimes to prosecutors.

Unlike the Commission on Public Integrity, created to oversee the executive branch as part of PEERA, the new commission to oversee the legislature is completely opaque. It's workings are secret and it doesn't make filings widely available to the public without a FOIL request, which arrives partially redacted . As the New York Times reported today: "Because the Legislature keeps tight control over its financial disclosures, more specific information on the amount of income Mr. Seminerio received is redacted before the forms before they are released." The reporting requirements themselves are somewhat weak; legislators are required to disclose categories of income, as written in the law:

Whenever a "value" or "amount" is required to be reported herein, such value or amount shall be reported as being within one of the following Categories: Category A - under $5,000; Category B - $5,000 to under $20,000; Category C - $20,000 to under $60,000; Category D - $60,000 to under $100,000; Category E - $100,000 to under $250,000; and Category F - $250,000 or over.

This marks the third member of the New York City Assembly delegation to be accused of corruption this year. The first was found guilty and is currently serving a sentence of two to six years; another faces up to 1o years in prison in his upcoming sentencing.

Lack of transparency can be an enemy of democracy. Complete transparency by the Legislature may not suddenly cure all of what ails ethics, but it's a well-advised first step.

State Primary: The Inventor vs. The Aviator

Included in the mailing of absentee ballots for the upcoming state primary are instructions on how to vote showing a hypothetical race between Thomas Edison and Amelia Earhart (below). Who did the city Board of Elections "vote" for? Edison. However, including instructions in three other languages--Spanish, Chinese and Koren--the two came out even 2-2.

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BMDs Are (Finally) in the City

A mailing (to the left) from the New York City Board of Elections earlier this week notified voters that ballot marking devices (BMDs) will be available to voters who need assistance in every precinct. This long overdue development was mandated by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002.

Six years and one lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice later, New York remains the least complaint in the nation with HAVA. Just when will the mechanical lever machines be replaced? According to Bo Lipari, the 2009 deadline is now slipping. New voting machines apparently are failing rigorous testing, which our colleague Larry Norden agrees with Bo is a good thing. Still, the state is required (once again) by law to install new machines in 2009.