Monday, April 15, 2013

110 BOE History of Corruption and Incompetence Timeline Part 2




missioners Fix the Ballot Again 
Something is rotten at the Board of Elections (NYP) Something stinks in Harlem — and at the Board of Elections.  In what critics claim is an extraordinary political deal, seven of the 10 commissioners on the city’s Board of Elections abstained in a vote to remove a politically-connected candidate, Larry Scott Blackmon, from the ballot — overruling their own lawyers and ignoring legal precedent.  The case involves the Feb. 14 special election to fill the Harlem City Council seat vacated by Inez Dickens, who won the state Assembly spot given up by Manhattan Democratic Party chairman KeithWright.  Among the nine candidates is Blackmon, who is backed by Dickens and Wright.  But Blackmon made a big mistake — he submitted petitions to run under the banner of the “Harlem Family” Party while gathering petitions.  The board’s chief lawyer, Steven Richman, said the name violated the law because it sounded too similar to the Working Families Party, and could mislead voters to thinkBlackmon had the WFP’s support.  “This is not a curable defect,” Richman said. “There’s a potential for confusion and fraud.” Candidates are barred from running under a partisan party banner in a non-partisan, special election. The board’s staff then recommended yanking Blackmon from the ballot. Board president Frederic Umane agreed.

Not Even Ballot Fixing By the BOE in 2010 is Investigated
Head of Board of Elections Fired One Week Before Election (WNYC) Sources at the Board of Elections say Gonzalez was fired over irregularities that initially appeared on the ballot of a special election in Queens for the City Council seat in the 28th district.*  Gonzalez Firing, DOI Investigation, Could Ease Awaited Bloomberg BoE Power Play(CHN)

Can Anyone Stop the Undemocratic Board of Elections 
New Yorkers unleashrage over alleged primary voter fraud at Board of Elections hearing (NYDN) Furious voters who didn’t get to cast ballots in last month’s primary elections erupted in shouts and epithets Tuesday at a Board of Election hearing in Manhattan. “This is fraud! You guys should do something about this,” Nabin Mandam, 41, of Queens lectured. Shouts of “You need to hear the people!” and “This is not Democracy!” and “Fraud!” filled the room. BOE director Michael Ryan and Commissioner Bianka Perez asked the crowd to leave when the meeting ended. As many as 126,000 voters may have been purged due to a clerk’s error, the BOE has said. BOE director Michael Ryan and Commissioner Bianka Perez asked the crowd to leave when the meeting ended. As many as 126,000 voters may have been purged due to a clerk’s error, the BOE has said. The Board of Elections initially dismissed the hundreds of complaints that poured in as groundless. But it has since suspended its chief clerk in Brooklyn without pay. But the BOE has yet to give a full explanation of what went wrong on the April 19 presidential primaries. Wendy Sacks, 63, of Park Slope, said she was mailed a notice from BOE saying city records indicated she had moved and needed to re-register. Sacks has lived in the same location for decades, she said. "I've been living at the same Brooklyn address for 30 years,” she said. But when she got a notice from BOE asking for her new address, she filled out the form — with her old one — and sent it back. She included a note to BOE that she was re-registering to vote but her address was the same. A few weeks later, she got a card saying she was approved, she said. Out of an abundance of caution, Sacks even brought that approval card to her polling site when she went to vote April 19. "When I came to the polls I showed them my card, they said 'I'm sorry. You're not in the books but you can vote by affidavit ballot or go to a judge,’” she said. She cast an affidavit ballot but also called BOE to lodge a complaint.


In Liberal NY Your Elected Officials Don't Want Your Vote to Count So They Can Stay in Office Forever and Rob Us Blind

Who Will Be the First Asshole Pol to Put Out A Press Release We Much Change the Voting Law Right After We Pass An Ethic Bill?

NewYork election law will disenfranchise thousands: Ivanka and Eric Trump aren'talone; Bernie Sanders' voters will get hurt by an insanely early partyregistration deadline (NYDN)  Notwithstanding its reputed liberalism, New York State is hobbled by the most restrictive voter registration law in the country. Democrats have spent the past several years complaining — with good reason — about Republican-led attempts to implement so-called "voter-ID" laws in other states, leading to unduly burdensome constraints on the right to vote and disenfranchising marginalized classes of citizens. But coupled with epic bureaucratic ineptitude, which already systematically undercuts the right to vote here, New York's registration law may have disenfranchised far more people than the voter ID laws elsewhere ever could. To test this hypothesis, I attended a Bernie Sanders rally over the weekend on the Coney Island boardwalk; it was scenic tableau from which to ring in the final stretch of campaigning before April 19, when Democrats go to the polls. Of the roughly 50 rally-goers queried in my informal survey, around half were ineligible to vote in the Democratic primary next week.  How the BOE Will Hand People who are Not on Their Official List of Registered Voters Everyone who show up to vote and found not to be on the registered voters list will be given an A Ballot which will only be counted if the person if found to be a registered voter by a BOE reporte  3 Million Registered Voters Cannot Vote in the Primary     Independent voters could make polling sites a nightmare (NYP) Unlike other states, New York allows only registered party members to vote in their respective primaries. So the 5.3 million registered Democrats can vote for Sanders or Hillary Clinton and the 2.6 million Republicans can vote for Donald Trump, John Kasich or Ted Cruz. But nearly 3 million independents and other party members are shut out.

California's governance has improved dramatically under non partisan elections and independent redistricting! New York's is a disgrace!



VOTER SUPPRESSION NY STYLE  Mass Confusion At the Polls Caused By the Bum Lawmakers Protecting Their Jobs With A Election Law That Prevents New Yorkers From Voting
Independent voters could make polling sites a nightmare (NYP) A lot of Sanders people who come from the ranks of independent voters are not actually registered Democrats and they will cause lines and waits at the poll sites while they attempt to vote affidavit ballots or obtain court orders to vote,” said John Conklin, a spokesman for the state Board of Elections.




Is Stringer the Only Pol Who is Speaking Out About Voting Rights in NYC?
City ControllerScott Stringer says break up Board of Elections in wake of voter purge (NYDN) City Controller Scott Stringer said Sunday the city needs to take a “sledgehammer” to the bumbling Board of Elections after it mistakenly stripped over 126,000 New Yorkers of their right to vote. Speaking on NY1, Stringer slammed the board responsible for the purge of voters that left so many fuming at the polls on primary day last week. “We’ve got to take a sledgehammer to this. We have to recognize the cornerstone of our democracy is voting. We have to stop pretending this is a democracy, when such few people end up going to the polls,” said Stringer, whose office will audit the agency.*  In the wake of the fallout over the purging of voters from the tax rolls, the New York City Council now plans to examine board of election practices, joining other government entities looking into the matter, Gotham Gazette reports:  * NYPIRG: Reinstate Purged Voters (YNN) * De Blasio Calls for Election Changes After Voting Problems (NYT) The mayor announced a $20 million plan to improve the city’s Board of Elections after complaints about its handling of last week’s presidential primary.


BOE Commissioner Kellner the Man Who Has Designed NY's Undemocratic Voting System Defends Team de Blasio Putnam Operation 
Douglas Kellner, oneof the board’s four commissioners, said on Sunday that he could not comment on or acknowledge investigations or criminal referrals. But he agreed with some of Mr. Laufer’s concerns about the impact of the leak and about “how prejudicial the public comments have been” in its wake. Mr. Kellner, a Democrat, added that he and other commissioners had consistently criticized Ms. Sugarman for “what appears to be arbitrary selection of those who she determines to investigate.” “We have repeatedly expressed concerns that the independent enforcement counsel has not explained how she chooses which investigations to pursue,” he said. . Mr. Kellner said the key to determining if a crime occurred was whether the act of transferring the money to the campaign committees of individual candidates was separate from the act of transferring the money to the individual candidates. Doing both transactions as part of a single transaction, Mr. Kellner said, would be a violation of state election law and a felony if it was done “knowingly and willfully,” arguing that Mr. Laufer did not delve into that topic. “It would have been perfectly legal to make the contribution to the party committee and for the party committee to spend the money in support of the candidate,” he said, “and it would have been perfectly legal for the party committee to transfer funds to the candidates campaign committee. But if it was a single transaction, then that’s a violation.”
BOE Hires From the Inside At A Higher Pay Rate 
Conflicts of Interest Board Lipstick On the BOE Pig
‘Sopranos’ actor & BOE manager pays nepotism violationfine(NYP) The city’s Conflicts of Interest Board slapped fines totaling $13,000 on three board officials for hiring, promoting and supervising family members, it was announced Thursday. One of those cited for violating city regulations is Anthony ­Ribustello, an actor working in the board’s Bronx office who gained fame as a chauffeur for Tony Soprano on the hit mob show. In the most embarrassing case, the president of the board — Queens Democratic Commissioner Jose Miguel Araujo — was hit with the maximum fine of $10,000 for hiring his wife, Rita, as a temporary clerk between 2010 and 2012 so she could get medical-insurance coverage from the city. Board commissioners — who have the power to hire and fire — are appointees selected by borough political-party bigwigs and confirmed by the City Council. Congressman Joe Crowley, a Queens Democratic Party leader, appointed Araujo, 42, an attorney.*City Board of Elections president fined $10,000 for hiring his wife(NYDN)






Saturday BOE Update  The reason 120,000 voters ‘vanished’ before primary day (NYP) Sources said all those on the hit list — voters who responded and voters who never received notifications — were eliminated from the rolls through the computer error. “This is not a case of only one person screwing up,” said a source. “It was bungled by a bunch of people who weren’t doing their jobs, and that’s because you’re dealing with patronage jobs where the workers try to do as little work as possible. Now everyone in the Brooklyn office is pointing fingers at each other.” Republican Diane Haslett-Rudiano, the BOE’s chief clerk in Brooklynwas suspended Thursday without pay pending an internal probe. However, Democrat Betty Ann Canizio-Aqil, the deputy clerk, remained on the job even though one of her main responsibilities is ensuring that her party’s voting rolls are accurate. Haslett-Rudiano had a reputation of being a poor manager and could be on her way out because she was a holdover staffer kept on after state Sen. Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn) assumed control of the GOP’s side of the office’s patronage mill, sources said. Canizio-Aqil is routinely absent or works half-days but is being protected by her longtime ally, Brooklyn Democratic Chairman Frank Seddio, sources said. BOE Executive Director Michael Ryan had promised an overhaul afterthe Department of Investigation in 2013 found nepotism, poor training and issues with removing voters.


How Did the BOE Have A System That Alloud Active Voted to Be Erased? BOE FALLLADY? 

New York election official ousted after her error purged over 100,000 Brooklyn voters from therolls, wreaking havoc at polls (NYDN) The massive purge of over 100,000 Brooklyn voters from the rolls — which caused huge problems at polling sites on Tuesday — was the result of an epic screw-up by a long-time official who will be forced out over the debacle, sources said. Diane Haslett-Rudiano, the Board of Election’s chief clerk, is in the process of being forced out over the botched voter rolls, the sources said Thursday. She was trying to clean up the books — which must be periodically purged to eliminate people who die, move or are ineligible for other reasons — and skipped one of the steps that was built in to stop the system from purging eligible voters, the sources said. Brooklyn lost 102,717 — or 8% — of its active voters from Nov. 1 2015 through April 1, 2016, according to state stats.* A New York City Board of Elections official in Brooklyn was suspended as city and state officials investigate whether tens of thousands of Democratic voters were improperly removed from voter rolls ahead of the New York presidential primary, The New York Times reports

Sacrificing a few scapegoats won’t fix the bungling Board of Elections (NYP Ed) Tuesday brought reports of problems all across the city. In Brooklyn, 120,000 voters — one in eight — got dropped from voting rolls between last November and this month. Elsewhere, folks found closed voting sites, broken machines, inadequate staffing levels and incompetent workers. On Wednesday, The Post ran a picture of one poll “worker” who’d been snoozing on the job. Many “voters” found they couldn’t vote — and are rightly furious.  et Michael Ryan, the city Board of Elex executive director, actually bragged, “I’d really like to say how proud I am of my staff.” He denied there were “mass numbers of disenfranchised voters in Brooklyn” and pooh-poohed reports of closed voting sites as “part and parcel of running elections in New York City.” That is: It’s OK they screwed up, because they always do. The Board of Election has a long record of incompetence. The root blame lies with the party bosses who control the whole thing — and use it as a patronage mill. Will Schneiderman and Stringer dare point fingers at the true culprits?


WTF is the BOE ReallyHiding Blaming An Old Lady for Voter Suppression? BHARARA 
Board of Elections official ‘scapegoated’ for voting mess (NYP) The city’s Board of Elections suspended the top official at its Brooklyn office without pay as they probe the mysterious purge of more than 120,000 Democratic voters from the borough rolls thatwreaked havoc on Tuesday presidential primaries. The solo suspension of Diane Haslett-Rudiano from her $125,000-a-year post over widespread polling problems is raising eyebrows that extend beyond party lines. Democrat Betty Ann Canizio, the BOE Deputy Clerk for Brooklyn, is the official primarily responsible for overseeing the borough’s Democratic voting rolls while Haslett-Rudiano, a Republican, oversees her party’s rolls, sources said.


Senator Golden is Sweating BOE Suspended Diane Haslett-Rudiano Today
“It sounds like they cut a deal to make the Republican the scapegoat and protect Betty Ann,” said an elected Brooklyn official who’s a Democrat. Canizio is an ally of Brooklyn Democratic Chairman Frank Seddio. She has a long history as a borough district leader of rubber-stamping his candidate nominations and political appointments. Seddio used his political muscle to help Canizio, 68, secure her $120,000-a-year post, sources said. BOE sources say she’s routinely absent or works half days. She failed to show up for work Thursday and wasn’t at her Bay Ridge home when visited by a Post reporter.* Suspending the chief Board of Elections clerk in Brooklyn is a fair start to investigating the reported voter issues on primary day, but the board has a long record of incompetence and the root blame lies with party bosses who control it, the Post writes:


The Political Bottom Feeders At the BOE Keep Fucking Up 
Board of Elections confuses city voters about primary dates (NYP) As required by state law, the board notified 60,000 new voters that local and state legislative primaries would be held on Sept. 28.   Except, the correct date is Sept. 13. So the board sent a second round of postcards apologizing for the error with the right date.  But those failed to mention two intervening election dates — the presidential primaries on April 19 and the congressional ones on June 28. Board officials said the law doesn’t require that the notice to new voters include the other elections, which will be publicized separately.  “The term ‘regularly scheduled primary’ has been widely, if not universally, interpreted as the September Primary for state and local offices,” board spokeswoman Valerie Vasquez said in a statement. Government watchdogs said that makes no sense.
BOE History of Corruption and Incompetence Timeline
BOE History of Corruption and Incompetence Timeline Part 2


True News Warned About Those Voting Problems 

The executive director of the NYC Board of Elections insisted no one was disenfranchised in yesterday’s primaries, insisting that people who were not supposed to be voting had protested by trying to vote.



It's NYC's first relevant primary in decades, and nobody can vote (NYP) * Voting Problems Prompt Comptroller to Vow Audit of New York City’s Elections Board (NYT) ** Citing concerns about voting irregularities during the presidential primary, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer said he would audit the city’s Board of Elections to see if tens of thousands of Democratic voters were improperly removed from voter rolls, the Times reports: 


Whoops: Kings County Ballot Contains A Misprint (YNN) The Democratic primary ballot in Brooklyn contains a misprint, with the word “affidavit” being misspelled, according to this photo sent to us by a reader. It’s a small error to be sure, but may not instill that much confidence for those already skeptical of the city Board of Elections.*   BREAKING: New York City comptroller orders audit of city board of elections over 'irregularities' in primary voting * New Yorkers Struggleto Cast Primary Ballots Amid Problems at the Polls via @Dnainfo *** Brooklyn Machines Delivered Late Again * The New York City Comptroller is ordering an audit after the New York City Board of Elections confirmed more than 125,000 voters in Brookly were removed from the voter rolls, this comes among widespread confusion and trouble at various polling locations. New York Facing Voting Problems (NYT)

In 2009 the BOE Restored de Blasio Ballot Line How Can Pols Who Need Them Reform Them To Restore NYers Voting Rights?
 In a disaster for voting rights and democracy, the incompetent New York City Board of Elections inexplicably removed more than 100,000 Brooklyn voters from the rolls amid the national spotlight of a crucial presidential primary, the Daily Newswrites:  * Citing concerns about voting irregularities during the presidential primary, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer said he would audit the city’s Board of Elections to see if tens of thousands of Democratic voters were improperly removed from voter rolls, the Times reports * Alice Cancel, the Democratic candidate backed by Sheldon Silver’s political machine, won the former Assembly speaker’s downtown district, garnering 41 percent to 35 percent for WFP candidate Yuh-Line Niou,the Post writes:  * Entire Block ofClinton Hill Voters Omitted From Rolls, Poll Worker Says (DNAINFO) Flashback Public advocate candidate de Blasio regainsballot line (CrainsNY) NYC Board of Elections votes to restore city councilman to Democratic primary race after his disqualification due to an error on his petition filing. City Councilman Bill de Blasio is back on the ballot.  The candidate for public advocate was restored to the Democratic primary ballot Tuesday afternoon by an 8-0 vote of the city Board of Elections commissioners. One commissioner abstained, citing his presence on the subcommittee that voted last week to remove Mr. de Blasio because of an error on his petitions’ cover sheet.


The Pols Are Shocked Today That the Board of Election Melted Down? Oh My 
It Took Me Five Hours and a Court Order to Vote Today, Queens Man Says (DNAINFO) *  @scottmstringer tells the Timesit's likely thousands of possible voters in BK were disenfranchised by Purge2016 * I’m one of NYC’s 125,000 ‘ghosts’ that couldn’t cast their vote (NYP Ed) According to the New York City Board of Elections, I’m a ghost. I was registered as an independent at my previous address in New Jersey, where I participated in the 2008 and 2012 elections without a hitch. I expected things to be just as simple in the Big Apple. Boy, was I wrong. I moved to Brooklyn in July 2015. After doing due diligence on the candidates, I decided to register as a Democrat with the specific intentions of voting in Tuesday’s presidential primary. I printed and mailed my registration on March 13 to the Board of Elections, well ahead of the March 25 deadline for new residents. I never heard back. So a week ago, I checked my voter- registration status. I was told I wasn’t registered at all, let alone as a Democrat. I checked to see if I was still registered under my previous addresses in the Garden State, and nothing came up. I contacted the city’s Board of Elections as soon as I learned that my registration wasn’t processed, but no one bothered returning my e-mails.* The board blows itscloseup by botching the election in Brooklyn (NYDN Ed) In a disaster for voting rights and democracy — and a horrifying embarrassment for New York — the incompetent New York City Board of Elections inexplicably removed more than 100,000 Brooklyn voters off the rolls amid the national spotlight of a crucial presidential primary. Tuesday, reports came from across the city, but especially in Brooklyn, of registered Democrats and Republicans being turned away from the polls because, they were told, they were ineligible. That alone would be troubling. Add in the hard fact of enrollment numbers and it screams that something has been rotten in the county of Kings. Of 62 counties statewide, 61 saw an increase in total voter enrollment since November — including Hamilton County, the smallest in the state. And then there was Brooklyn — the state’s single most populous county. The borough lost an off-the-charts 8% of its active voters (102,717) and 6.5% of its total voters over that brief period. Among Democrats, 63,821 voters vanished, 7% of the total. Among the GOP, the carnage was greater: 11,285 voters dropped, 10.1% of the total. You don’t need Donald Trump to proclaim an irregularity this large yuuge. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s voter hotline recorded far more complaints than ever before, with the mess focused in Brooklyn among voters who were no longer listed as being registered.
Mayor de Blasio, a Brooklyn voter himself, is outraged and demanding answers. City Controller Scott Stringer will run an audit. There already is a class action lawsuit filed in federal court that may be able sort out what happened. Anyone who has the sad task of chronicling the ineptitude of the city’s Board of Elections knows the root cause of its perpetually amateurish performance. The board, by design, is ruled by party bosses, not professionals.




Progressive NY Has Only Had One Change to the Election Law in 40 Years and That Was By the Federal Courts Not Albany
The Media and Good Govt Groups Have Done Nothing But Get Their Names in the Paper and Raise Money to Pay Themselves
Newspaper editorials and good government groups despite repeated efforts have failed to bring about any reforms in the election systems. The only reform to New York's election system was a result of a lawsuit by John McCain in 2000 because he was keep off the ballot for lack of signatures.  It is sad that will all the editorial and good government press conferences it was the McCain reforms that eliminated minor petition filing mistakes as a reason to knock a candidate off the ballot and made it most simpler to bind the petition and cover sheet that are submitted to the Board of Election.   







Trump Hater Daily News Thinks His Kids For Showing How Restrictive NY's Voting Laws 
But Leaves Out An Explanation How Voter Suppression Could Happen In Progressive NY
Thank the Trumps forshowing how restrictive NY’s voting laws are (NYDN) The unthinkable has happened: The Trump campaign has done people of New York a public service. Two of Donald Trump’s children, Ivanka and Eric, confessed last week that they had failed to switch their enrollment to the Republican Party in time to vote for their father in Tuesday’s presidential primary. The arrogantly Trumpian obliviousness to the rules is a huge embarrassment to a daughter and son who knew full well their dad was running for the GOP nomination back when last October’s party-enrollment deadline came and went. TRUMP'S CHILDREN BLAST 'ONEROUS' NEW YORK PRIMARY RULES  But beyond Trumpistan are thousands of registered voters inspired to take part in an all-important primary who are getting shut out by some of the nation’s most restrictive rules. State law says to vote in a primary, an enrolled voter must formally join the party by an absurdly early date a year and a month before the general election. This cycle, it was Oct. 9, 2015. The snag caught Erica Snipes, daughter of Eric Garner, a committed Bernie Sanders supporter who didn’t become a Democrat in time to vote. Having some deadline makes sense. Parties are right to want to prevent enrollees from flooding their ranks at the last minute to make mischief. But it’s obscenely protective of partisan privilege to pull up the drawbridge a full half-year before people go to the primary polls .* The follow state all people to vote the day of the primary IDAHOIOWAMAINEMINNESOTAMONTANANEWHAMPSHIRE,  WISCONSINWYOMINGWASHINGTON DC, CALIFORNIACONNECTICUTHAWAII  Hundreds Of New York State Voters To File Suit Calling The Closed Primary ‘A threat To Our Democratic System’ After Claiming Their Party Affiliation Mysteriously Changed Brooklyn's Missing 60,000 Voters Hundreds of NY voters file suit calling the closed primary 'a threat to our democratic system' (NYDN)* 54,000 Brooklyn voters ‘vanish’ ahead of primary day (NYP) In a pre-primary bombshell, the city’s Board of Elections was pummeled with questions Monday about how 54,000 Democratic voters vanished from the rolls in Brooklyn. The voter rolls on April 1 showed the borough had 853,687 registered Democrats who are considered “active” because they voted at least once in the last four years. But in November, there were 917,508, or 63,558 more. The board said the numbers changed because many once-active voters were moved to the inactive list. But that list grew by only 9,154 voters — from 82,807 to 91,961 — leaving 54,404 Brooklyn voters missing. Voters on the inactive list can still cast a ballot if they live in the city. But the “missing” voters are out of luck — their names have been stricken from the records. 
Board of Elections Executive Director Michael Ryan said the mystery is easily explained — because of retirements and staff illness, the voting list was not properly maintained in Brooklyn for six to eight months. When staffers caught up with the backlog, he said, they purged voters who should have been removed earlier last year.* 14 New Yorkers claim to have been denied voting rights, claim as many as 60,000 Brooklyn Dems have been removed (NYDN) Fourteen New Yorkers who claim their voter registrations had been improperly purged from the rolls filed suit Monday asking a federal judge to order the Board of Elections to allow them to cast votes in the presidential primary. The suit alleges that as many as 60,000 Democratic voters in Brooklyn alone have been removed and that many discovered only recently that their voting status was listed as “not registered.” It seeks a court order assuring voters who have been purged are eligible to vote.* New York’s closed primary system, which requires party registration months in advance, reinforces partisanship and punishes independent-minded voters, Common Cause’s Susan Lerner writes in the Post: 


In Progressive NY Your Elected Officials Don't Want Your Vote to Count So They Can Stay in Office Forever and Rob Us Blind

Who Will Be the First Asshole Pol to Put Out A Press Release We Much Change the Voting Law Right After We Pass An Ethic Bill?

NewYork election law will disenfranchise thousands: Ivanka and Eric Trump aren'talone; Bernie Sanders' voters will get hurt by an insanely early partyregistration deadline (NYDN)  Notwithstanding its reputed liberalism, New York State is hobbled by the most restrictive voter registration law in the country. Democrats have spent the past several years complaining — with good reason — about Republican-led attempts to implement so-called "voter-ID" laws in other states, leading to unduly burdensome constraints on the right to vote and disenfranchising marginalized classes of citizens. But coupled with epic bureaucratic ineptitude, which already systematically undercuts the right to vote here, New York's registration law may have disenfranchised far more people than the voter ID laws elsewhere ever could. To test this hypothesis, I attended a Bernie Sanders rally over the weekend on the Coney Island boardwalk; it was scenic tableau from which to ring in the final stretch of campaigning before April 19, when Democrats go to the polls. Of the roughly 50 rally-goers queried in my informal survey, around half were ineligible to vote in the Democratic primary next week.  How the BOE Will Hand People who are Not on Their Official List of Registered Voters Everyone who show up to vote and found not to be on the registered voters list will be given an A Ballot which will only be counted if the person if found to be a registered voter by a BOE reporte  3 Million Registered Voters Cannot Vote in the Primary     Independent voters could make polling sites a nightmare (NYP) Unlike other states, New York allows only registered party members to vote in their respective primaries. So the 5.3 million registered Democrats can vote for Sanders or Hillary Clinton and the 2.6 million Republicans can vote for Donald Trump, John Kasich or Ted Cruz. But nearly 3 million independents and other party members are shut out.*  
New York’s primary is ‘closed shut’ by insane registration rules (NYDN) Because in New York, we don’t just have a closed-party system in which only enrolled Democrats and Republicans can vote for their respective candidates: The primary is closed shut. The deadline to switch parties or change affiliation is the earliest in the country — this cycle it was Oct. 9, 2015. If you’re a Republican, Democrat or unaffiliated voter, you’d better know six months out whom you’re supporting, because there won’t be an opportunity to reconsider. This system both reinforces partisanship and punishes independent-minded voters, effectively disenfranchising them. — 27 percent of all registered New York voters, including unaffiliated voters — will not be eligible to vote. And the multitude of “party switchers” will be left out, too. What’s worse is that many of these voters who registered a change with the Board of Elections after the deadline think that they’re eligible to vote today. That’s because the New York Board of Elections sends out a notice acknowledging a change of registration that lists a person’s current party in big bold letters, and at the bottom in small print a person’s “Future Party” next to a cryptic caveat: “Effective Date November 15, 2016.” Unfortunately, the “future” doesn’t mean the next election but the one after that. This will wreak havoc on Tuesday when these voters find out that they cannot vote in the primary election for which they thought they had successfully registered. Although they can try to vote by filling out a provisional ballot, it’s unlikely to count. And if they need or want to contest their vote for whatever reason, they can’t because under the law only parties and elected officials have standing to do so.  Is it any wonder that New York, the third-largest state in the nation, ranks 49th in voter turnout?  New York’s registration requirements rob New Yorkers of their full democratic rights.
California's governance has improved dramatically under non partisan elections and independent redistricting! New York's is a disgrace!



VOTER SUPPRESSION NY STYLE  Mass Confusion At the Polls Caused By the Bum Lawmakers Protecting Their Jobs With A Election Law That Prevents New Yorkers From Voting
Independent voters could make polling sites a nightmare (NYP) A lot of Sanders people who come from the ranks of independent voters are not actually registered Democrats and they will cause lines and waits at the poll sites while they attempt to vote affidavit ballots or obtain court orders to vote,” said John Conklin, a spokesman for the state Board of Elections.






Why is the State Having More Than One Primary in 2016?
The McGoven Primary Lesson Still Rules
40 Years Ago George McGovern Pull Out Thousands of New Voters in A Primary, A Lot of Albany Incumbents Lost - Schumer and Holtzman and Others Entered

By not consolidating state and federal primaries into one day, taxpayer money is wasted and incentives are created for politicians to run for multiple offices at once without any real consequences, former New York City Councilman Adam Clayton Powell 4th writes in the Daily News: 

Why 2 Primaries in Presidential Election Years
An Expensive and Unnecessary Election(NYT Ed) The extra New York State primary will cost state taxpayers $50 million for their trouble. New York State is poised to put voters through another needlessly expensive election year. Instead of taking the sensible route — one primary to pick party candidates and one general election to pick ultimate winners — New York is scheduled to have an extra primary. That means three elections when two are enough. The extra primary will cost state taxpayers $50 million for their trouble. The Assembly was right to challenge this scenario with a bill providing for federal, state and local primaries on the fourth Tuesday in June (the 24th this year). That gives officials plenty of time to count ballots and announce nominees for the November general election. It also allows the state to comply with federal law that requires primaries to be held early enough so that troops overseas can get ballots and mail them back in time to be counted. The Senate, however, has yet to agree to a single June primary. Its members want a federal primary in June and a separate state and local primary (which would include their own primary elections) in September. It’s been that way for 40 years, and the Senate, which is now almost evenly divided between the two major parties, seems intent on resisting change.* Stewart-Cousins Urges Passage Of Consolidated Primary(NYO)


Only One Case of Nepotism AT BOE BS
Queens Board of Elections head fined $10K for nepotism (NYP) A city Board of Elections commissioner has agreed to pay a $10,000 fine for lining up — and then personally approving — a job for his daughter’s live-in partner. Queens Republican Commissioner Michael Michel admitted to passing along a résumé for his daughter’s boyfriend, Joseph Cintron, landing him a $24-an-hour temp job in May 2013. Michel then voted to approve the hire and later approved two promotions for Cintron, who was earning $48,289 a year by January 2014. Michel has served as a commissioner since January 2013.




Board of Elections Hacks Vote Themselves A Pay Raise 
Attack of the Boardof Election hacks (NYDN Ed) Government officials often complain that low pay hurts their ability to attract good people to work for the public. True in some cases. Egregiously false in the case of a patronage-ridden swamp like the city Board of Elections. The Board asked the City Council and the mayor for more dough — ostensibly to run elections and not for raises. Elected leaders answered the prayer in the budget agreed to late Monday night. The next day, Board commissioners handed out goodies. At a public meeting, they entered into secret session — and came out two hours later. Then, over the course of two-and half minutes they rattled off $201,990 in raises. That’s roughly $80,000 a minute. The top Democrat and Republican in each borough office will now make up to $130,000 for chiefs and $125,000 for deputies and, in a laugh, they will no longer be eligible for merit pay. Nine central office bosses also got hikes, boosting their average salary to $150,000. The raises got rammed through two weeks after the very same commissioners refused to publicly list all job openings. That’s rich.  There is only one solution here: Abolish the Board of Elections and institute a professional nonpartisan civil service workforce.

Patronage Wins At Board of Elections
The Board ofElections fix remains in (NYDN Ed) Nine months ago, seeking appointment to the Board of Elections, Alan Schulkin, Bianka Perez and John Flateau swore under oath to the City Council that they supported the public listing of job openings — a change that would strike a death blow to patronage at the nepotism-infected agency. Last Tuesday, true to their pledge to Councilman Ben Kallos, the trio — serving as Democratic commissioners from Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn — introduced a motion to post all employment vacancies at the Board. Patronage won. Voting no were Democrats Jose Miguel Araujo (Queens) and Maria Guastella (Staten Island) and Republicans Michael Michel (Queens) and Fred Umane (Manhattan). Bronx Republican Michael Rendino weirdly abstained and Republicans Ron Castorina (S.I.) and Simon Shamoun (Brooklyn) were absent.

NYC's lever machines warehoused... but not forgotten (or unused)

EXCLUSIVE: NYC Board of Elections asks City Hall for $7.4M to boost salaries of pollworkers.
 
BOE Surprise DOI, City Council Attack and Firing Your Mother
Headline of the Day: “‘It’s not easy to fire your mom,’ says Board of Elections commissioner.”
Board to investigate duplicate voters
NY1 Online: DOI Commissioner Discusses Possible Board of Elections ReformsNYC Department Of Investigation Chief: Board Of Elections "Hostile" To Reform Recommendations (NYDN) 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."* Department of Investigation, Board of Elections Face Off at City Council (NY1) * Investigations chief briefs the Council on B.O.E. problems(Capital) * D.O.I. Report  The report listed nepotism, violations of voter privacy, and a staff of untrained workers among B.O.E.'s most glaring systemic problems. D.O.I. released a list of 40 recommended changes to the agency, but according to Peters, the agency has been less than cooperative in implementing changes. Peters went onto say that nepotism at the agency was rampant and that in one case, a B.O.E. commissioner admitted to hiring his wife in order to obtain health benefits he was not entitled to receive on his own. According to Peters, close to 10 percent of the staff at B.O.E. is related to other employees of the board.

Public Financing of Comptroller Race, Who in Charge?
BOE commissioner uneasy about public financing in budget(Capital) State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said he did not get a heads-up from anyone, including the governor or legislative leaders privy to budget negotiations, about the public campaign financing program for the comptroller’s race in the budget, the Times Union reports: http://goo.gl/X5DWaz State Board of Elections commissioner Doug Kellner said the board was not consulted about administering a public financing system, and was not given additional resources to carry out the process.  State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli says he was completely left out of discussions about the financing system, which only impacts his office, but also believes there’s “still time to fix it.” *  Crain’s: “Ironically, the state lawmakers’ ethics reform deal may actually erode public trust.”* Campaign Finance Reformers Stay Optimistic Despite Having 'Worst Week' in Many Years(NY1)


State Board of Elections commissioners said county district attorneys do not follow up on election violation complaints and feel they were unfairly targeted by the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption, the Times Union writes: 
City BOE botches Chinese ballot text(Capital) Translators from the BOE were suspended after major error on November ballot * Albany County DA David Soares fired back at the state Board of Elections commissioners.
* The Times Union writes that the state Board of Elections’ claim that district attorneys have been lax in enforcing campaign finance rules is a deflection from the need to reform the system, including the board:

What Ever Happen to DOI's Investigation of Former Ex-Director Gonzalez for Ballot Fixing?


The Daily News BOE Treadmill
Council Has the Power to Clean Up the BOE
The Daily News Keeps Cherry Picking Problems At the BOE When They Can Solve Blow Up the Corrupt Agency By Demanding the Next Council Speaker Pledge to Clean It Up
The Daily News Should Ask Each of the Council Speaker Candidates If They Will Use Their Power to Confirm Board of Election Commissioner to Demand Reforms of That Corruption Institution
The DN Has the Power to Put Pressure on the Next Speaker to Clean Up the BOE, But Does Not Use It
Quinn and a gang of 4 GOP councilmember used  the power to confirm BOE commissioners to throw out commissioner in Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island and the Bronx. The result is that GOP party leaders patronage appoints to the BOE are being replaced by people from the councilmembers and their friends. Why is the media not demand that the next council speaker clean out the BOE and restore Democracy to New York City? * Bloomberg rips NYC's scanner voting machines over privacy(NYDN)
Today's Daily News BOE Cheery Pick
BOE Makes Counting Ballots Into A Patronage Bonanza That Has Little to Do With Counting
Have money, will waste (NYDN Ed) The insane, inane inefficiency of the city's Board of Elections never ceases to amaze. Although there was no doubt as to the outcome of the race — or any question about who won other contests on Nov. 5 — the board hired teams of patronage workers to eyeball each and every ballot in search of write-in votes that were not detected by the scanners.They sat before computer screens in five board warehouses (one in each borough), equally balanced between Democratic and Republican temporary hires. One by one, they called up photographic images of the ballots and looked down the last ballot column to spot write-ins in any of the nine races being contested.  If they found none, they advanced to the next image. When they found a write-in, they jotted the name down. But they found almost none. Consider what happened in the 2012 presidential election. Voters cast 2,474,254 ballots, including 2,337 write-ins, about one-tenth of a percent of the tally. Of those ballots, 80% where deemed “unattributable” because the handwriting was illegible or the voter wrote something like “Get lost” or entered a fictional name such as Donald Duck. The board’s claim that every vote must be accurately counted is specious, because there is a much simpler, more cost effective way to get the job done. The manufacturer of the ballot scanning machines says the devices can easily be programmed to display only those ballot images with marks in the write-in areas. Were the board to do that, its patronage workers would have to inspect only several thousand ballots, not 1 million of them. But that would mean few workers and a lower payroll. Sacrilege!* States making strides to move elections from the voting booth into the hands — and even mobile devices — of voters:(Politico)
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BOE Investigates Itself, DOI Missing in Action for Years - But the Daily News Keeps Wishing
Seven months ago, Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn assigned a special six-person crew to uncover fraud, waste and corruption at the Board. They haven’t been heard from since. 
NYC Board Of Elections Chief: No Evidence Of Widespread Misdirection From Nov. 5 Pollworkers(NYDN) City Board of Elections boss Michael Ryan says the agency will check out complaints that pollworkers wrongly pushed people to vote straight ticket* Board Of Elections Says Claims Of Poll Worker Misconduct Were Isolated Misunderstandings(NY1)
More on Corruption at the BOE  More 
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Stupid is As Stupid BOE Does

The Board of Elections decided to print the November ballots in a tiny, six-point font while providing magnifying glasses to voters. 

DN Good at pointing out the problems of the BOE but never goes after the Party Hacks who run it
Daily News re ballots w/9-point type: "Somehow, the (Bd of Elections) never fails to do the wrong thing."
NYC Board of Elections thinks small: Ballots for mayoral race being printed in tiny, 6-point type 
New York City Ballots’ Tiny Print Is Criticized(NYT) Elected officials and government watchdogs criticized the New York City Board of Elections for printing ballots for the November elections with the candidates’ names in tiny, six-point font, with the Board arguing that the font size is necessary*
Daily News re ballots w/9-point type: "Somehow, the (Bd of Elections) never fails to do the wrong thing." (NYDN)
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BOE Apologist

The Use of the Old Voting Machines Have Turned the BOE's New Executive Director Michael Ryan into A Professional Apologist 
Don't Count On BOE
 Many mayoral votes unreported(NYP)
 Michael Ryan, the board’s executive director, said the “zero” figures were clocked accidentally by fatigued poll workers and will be corrected when the machines are double-checked by Sunday. . .  “It’s a long day. People make mistakes,” Ryan said. “People take a reading from the machine, then write it down on a piece of paper called a canvass sheet. There can often be transcription errors.” As an example, he said a 495 might be entered as 945. “That would be a flip of 500 votes,” he noted.* NYC waits as officials recount Dem primary votes(WSJ) * City workers begin tallying final votes to determine whether Bill Thompson's mayoral dream is still alive(NYDN) * de Blasio, Thompson await results in vote recanvassing (WABC)* Perfect Saturday night activity: You too can play BOE ballot counter with WNYC's mayoral vote widget (no napping!)

“Once again, the Board of Elections just is not able to give the public the easy guaranteed reliable ways to vote,” Bloomberg *  Bloomberg Bashes Elections Board as Manual Ballot Count Begins





"When a group of journalists arrived around noon to observe the recanvassing — three hours after it had been scheduled to begin — three election workers were dozing amid the voting machines. Another worker could be overheard on a cellphone expressing alarm that reporters were present to witness their work." NY Times
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It Will Be A Long Wait For Results From the BOE
On Monday, the board will begin tabulating 78,491 paper ballots — a mix of absentees, affidavits filled out by those whose names were erroneously left off the voting rolls and emergency ballots cast in cases when machines broke down. But officials could not predict when that process would be complete. The overtime and outside hires $$$ will be high.



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The Only Man Who Can Make Sure the Votes Are All Counted
If there are 100,000 Paper Ballots How Many Were Caused By Broken Machines?

The Board of Elections Has not Released the Number of Broken Machines 

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Commissioner and Lobbyist Corruption Led to Purchase to Scanner That Don't Work
Why Did the City Spend $95 Million on Scanner That Don't Work. And Why is the Media Covering Up That Fact
There were 657,330 votes cast in Tuesday’s election, each recorded on mechanical lever machines dating back to the 1960s.
  1. NYC election workers begin double-checking results from state-of-art voting equipment.
    Bloomberg said the board’s real problem lay with the paper ballot and electronic scanner voting system it rolled out three years agoBecause of difficulties with the electronic voting machines, the Board of Elections revived the old lever voting machines for the primary.
    1. Be advised that Commissioners of the Board of Elections in New York will NOT certify an election until every vote that is cast is counted.

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Tammany Hall Voting and Counting

Update:  The say it is still not ready to release the results of its recanvass & offers no estimate of when results will (Tuesday 5PM). They promised to release the results Sunday Night  WHERE IS THE DEMAND FOR CITY COUNCIL HEARING ON THE BOE?




I Am In  Control of the Numbers Count Says the Executive Director of the BOE Picked By NY's Corrupt Party Bosses

The New York City Board of Elections acknowledged that it still did not know when it would be able to release official results from the primary election, with the board’s Executive Director Michael Ryan defending the slow timetable.
A Week Later, No End in Sight for Primary Vote Count(NYT) The Board of Elections acknowledged on Tuesday that, a week after the primary election for mayor of New York City, it still did not know when it would be able to release official results.The executive director of the city’s Board of Elections, Michael J. Ryan, responded defiantly on Tuesday.

Sounding frustrated, he said the board had compressed its usual vote-counting schedule, and suggested its critics were being unreasonable. If Mr. de Blasio were to drop below 40 percent in the official results for the Democratic mayoral primary, the city would also have to hold a runoff for that nomination, even though Mr. Thompson has said he would not contest it. The recanvassing of the machines has been completed, election officials said, but the board has not yet released adjusted numbers. Mr. Ryan asserted that the counting of paper ballots was “on schedule,” but he declined to specify what the schedule was because he said he did not want to put “undue pressure” on his staff. He added that the board would not release any results for the recanvassing of the machines or the counting of paper ballots until each task was finished. “That’s the way it’s going to be, and that’s my decision,” he said. “I’ll quote Forrest Gump: ‘And that’s all I have to say about that.'”* Board of Elections slow to tally final primary votes from ancient lever machines(NYDN) As of late Tuesday, the board still had not finished verifying results from 5,059 lever machines — a task it had hoped to complete by Saturday.


The Capital of the World is Forced to Live With A 3rd World Voting System Designed in the 20s'
 NYT: The board’s failure to deliver official results nearly a week after the vote a “disgrace
NYT uses Bill Thompson’s exit from the mayoral race as an opportunity to criticize the New York City Board of Elections for its slow response in counting votes from last week’s primary election
Thompson Bows Out(NYT Ed) We say probably because the New York City Board of Elections hasn’t finished counting the votes. For the last week, Mr. Thompson has been in the awkward position of hanging around to see whether Mr. de Blasio’s unofficial 40.3 percent holds up. In leaving the race, Mr. Thompson called the board’s failure to deliver official results nearly a week after the vote a “disgrace.” He’s right, though its incompetence is hardly a surprise. This was the election, after all, where more than 5,000 antique lever-action voting machines had to be dragged out of storage because the board knew it couldn’t get optical-scanning machines ready for a possible runoff.

The board, whose members are appointed by county leaders of both parties, is a patronage-riddled agency with one job, which it does very poorly. The most appealing solution is just to abolish the board, as Mayor Michael Bloomberg has urged for years, and to replace it with a nonpartisan body of skilled professionals. But that would require rewriting the State Constitution, which the Legislature would resist. Perhaps a good, civic-minded project for Mr. Bloomberg, Speaker Christine Quinn and Mr. Thompson — all of whom know how to run big operations — is to take on reform of this abysmal system.* New York City Board of Elections officials defended their timetable for counting additional ballots in the mayoral race and say there may still be a mayoral runoff, even after Bill Thompson bowed out of the race and attacked the Board, NY1 reports:
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BOE F- and They Should Be Arrested
 

Clueless Reporters Allow the Truth to Be Twisted By Spinner
Mike Ryan, the new executive director at the Board of Elections, gave his agency’s Election Day-performance a “solid B-plus,” in a Gotham Gazette interview. “I wouldn’t be as pretentious to give us an A, but a solid B-plus,” he contended. ”I don’t think we did so badly,” he further told Capital New


This is  Not A Joke
York.State Board of Elections set to tap former Silver aide as enforcement officer
 

Update on BOE Slow Count
Latest tally from the Board of Elections: 40.88% for after machine and emergency ballots counted *  In final Board of Elections machine count, de Blasio fell just short of Thompson + Quinn, by < one percentage point (40.88% vs. 41.74%). * Thompson is at 26.25%; Quinn, 15.49%; Liu, 6.9%; Weiner, 4.88%.* Randy Credico did better than "What about" Sal Albanese. Credico, 1.73%; Albanese, 0.83% Still counting affidavit, military, absentee votes. The Board of Elections' official count of the paper ballots is not expected to be done until end of week. So, it's not over 'til it's over. * De Blasio’s vote total jumped up slightly to 40.88 percent as the city Board of Elections continues to tally the votes to see if de Blasio amassed enough votes to avoid a runoff, the Wall Street Journal reports: * Mayoral election done? Don't count on it as workers tally huge pile of paper ballots(NYDN)


BOE spox says she can't say how many paper ballots remain to be counted. Says she hopes to have # tomorrow.
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11 Days After the Primary and Still No Final Court From  the Board of Elections
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New King of  BOE

Marty Golden Gets His Puppet Commissioner to Vote for SI Dem Ryan

 NYC board of elections votes 6 to 3 with one absence to name Michael Ryan of Staten Island its new executive director. SI GOP commission Simon Shamoun the with dems *  The New York City Board of Elections chose Staten Island Democrat Michael Ryan as executive director, winning the support of the board’s five Republicans and one Democrat after a long vacancy, the Daily News writes:


Where Investigations Go to Die BOE


INVESTIGATIVE IRONY: Cuomo, as attorney general, passed on probing Onondaga County DA Bill Fitzpatrick—Daily News' Ken Lovett: "The attached allegation was received by this office," Cuomo's office wrote in a letter to Board of Elections Commissioner Evelyn Aquila on Jan. 10, 2008. "After a careful review of the documents, we have determined that the issue mentioned pertain to your office. Accordingly, we are referring this material to you for whatever action you deem appropriate." A source close to Cuomo says that by law, the Board of Elections has sole jurisdiction over election laws. "Not much else could have been done," the source said. "It really shouldn't have gone to the AG's office in the first place." Ultimately, the Board of Elections--where Cuomo now says complaints go to die--did nothing, citing limited resources  * The Times Union argues in favor of requiring political parties to report to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics on their spending on lobbying-style campaigns, using the state Democratic committee’s glowing ad campaign about Cuomo as an example: http://bit.ly/I4sQLg

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How Many Flip the Ballot?

How Many Voters Didn’t Flip Over the Ballot? (NY Mag) as many as 27 percent of voters may have never even turned over the page. According to a preliminary Board of Elections count, 1,026,168 people voted for mayor on Tuesday, but the ballot prop with the most votes — Prop 1, on the limited legalization of casino gambling — only received 756,250 votes.


The BOE Spent $69 Dollars for Each Vote in the Runoff
Tish James the Democratic Nominee for Public Advocate
 With 97% reporting, cost per vote in the NYC runoff is $72



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Light Turnout and the BOE Still FU

Reasons for the Slow Count Last Night
Reports that the IPads Given to Assembly BOE Coordinators Where Not Programed Right and the Sticks Counters did not work at Certain Police Pcts

There were no magnifiers at the polling stations it was impossible to read the propositions 
The biggest loser(NYDN)
They had months upon months to get ready, and still the hacks and relatives of hacks who populate the city’s Board of Elections failed to run a flawless election.* In Brooklyn’s 52nd Assembly district — the neighborhoods of Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens and Brooklyn Heights — the board equipped 21 polling sites with electronic vote scanning machines that were improperly programmed. They didn’t work. Then there was the ballot’s infuriatingly small type, and the magnifying glasses that somehow made it a blur.* Scanner Problems & Mistranslated Ballots Made Election Day Rough, Again
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Another DN BOE Cover Up

Former Silver aide will be BOE enforcer

After All the Layoffs It Clean Nobody Left At the Daily News Understands How the Corrupt Board of Election Works
BOE Cover Up Continues The Daily News is shocked that the BOE attorney Rickman who is put into his job by the corrupt county leaders is blocking a corruption investigation.  Does the Daily News Also believe that their is no gambling at rick's place? The papers editorial today gives this load of BS about how the mayor his given DOI $800,000 to find corrupt at the BOE but big bad board lawyer Richman is blocking it.  In reality this is so much corruption going on at the BOE it took a cover up by the Daily News, DOE and Bloomberg not to find it during the last Decade.   Old dog, old tricks (NYDN ED) The Daily News criticizes the New York City Board of Elections’ General Counsel Steven Richman for stonewalling a city investigation into why the board mishandles elections and doles out patronage jobs

The Daily News Knows That DOI Does Not Need $800,000 or Richman Help to Find Corruption At the BOE. They Are Already Covering It Up


2.  The NYC Board of Elections suspended an employee who’s also a top Queens GOP official, Stephen Graves, after he was caught on tape soliciting a “finder’s fee” from a voting machine contractor in exchange for recommending a particular lobbyist. Qns. elections official under fire for soliciting money from a contractor (NYP) *  Qns. elections official under fire for soliciting money from a contractor (NYP) (No Action by DOI)
  
3. Why did the city spend $90 million for voting machines that cannot do the job? Moving mayoral primary since scanners can’t handle a runoff does not compute(NYDN) (No Action by DOI) 

4. True News Has Confirmed From A Current Top Executive That BOE warehouse employee Phil Ragusa the nephew of the Queens GOP leader is on the payroll of ESS as A Paid Consultant.  More 
* NYC Board Of Elections: Inquests & Invoices(NYDN)
5. A few years back, the Westchester lawyer Anthony J. Mangone, who shared an office with Jay Savino, the Bronx Republican leader, earned a cool $100,000 lobbying the board on behalf of a voting machine company, Election Systems and Software. (No DOI Investigation) (No Action by DOI)

6. The Daily News' Errol Louis reports today, the behind-the-scenes battle between Election Systems & Software and Dominion Voting Sytems(a/k/a Sequoia Voting) is being carried on by highly-paid proxies, namely the city's most politically wired lobbyists. Dominion/Sequoia's bid is being led by the estimable Stanley Schlein, who was Mayor Bloomberg's pick as chairman of the Civil Service Commission until he was found to be using the place and staff as his private law office. (No Action by DOI)

7. The Feds are also investigating a Board Of Election (the cesspool of political corruption) contract for new machines that Hank Sheinkopf was a lobbyist for. Feds investigate switch by Board of Elections ... - New York PostVoting Machine Smack-Down: Lobbyists Brawl(Village Voice)   (No Action by DOI) 8. Not to be outdone, ES&S has its own congressional brother on its team, John "Sean" Crowley of Davidoff Malito law firm and brother of Joe Crowley, who is not only a congressman but also head of the Queens Democratic Party (No Action by DOI) 


Thompson Hoisted By His Own Petard
Thompson Campaign Consultant Sheinkopf Was the Winner Lobbyist for the BOE $95 M Scanners Contract That Don't Work for Runoffs
  1. That "disgrace" at Bd of Elex? Brought to you by same political cronies advising and .
    The Feds are investigating a Board Of Election (the cesspool of political corruption) contract for new machines that Sheinkopf was a lobbyist for. 


    Feds investigate switch by Board of Elections ... - New York Post  
    Feds probing how Board of Elections chose flawed electronic voting ...
    Green Party City Council candidate Lynne Serpe, running for a seat in Astoria, Queens, has saved hundreds of dollars in taxes by listing her primary residence in New Orleans, a situation Serpe promises to rectify, the Daily News writes: http://nydn.us/1gxrB0P



9.   Queens GOP Chair Drops Case To Get Ousted Board Of Elections Commissioner Back To Work(NYDN) Robert Hornak the director of machines for the Board of Election testified in sworn statements to the court that  the Queens leadership executive committee members met and voted Nov. 1 to reappoint Stupp, and that on Nov. 3, Ragusa signed a certificate saying so. That information was to have been mailed to the City Clerk and City Council on Nov. 19 -- although apparently neither envelope ever arrived.(No Action by DOI)

Absentee Voting Hits Major Snag In New York(Huff Post)Some New York voters who requested absentee ballots may receive them late because the New York City Board of Elections faces a backlog of applications * An Absurd Vote-Counting System(NYT) Board Of Election Still Counts Last Month's Affidavit Ballots(NY1) *The city Board of Elections has to end its foolish method of counting votes (NYDN Ed)
    It's almost 2 months since Election Day. Electoral College has already met. Yet NYC Board of Elections has yet to certify the results. * Invitation to grand larceny(NYP) * The city Board of Elections has to end its foolish method of counting votes (NYDN Ed)   (No Action by DOI)


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Media Blinders on the BOE


True News Starts the Wag on the NYT of the BOE, But What About Corruption and $95 M Scanner That Don't Work?
The NYT's Eleanor Randolph reports about the slow count and patronage at the BOE, but does not write about its history of corruption and why it spend $95 million on scanner which could run the runoff. Randolph should reread True News cover of the corruption at the BOE and try again. True News Says If Tammany Hall is Not Pushed Out of Running the BOE the Old Machines Will Be Back in 2017.  BOE History of Corruption and Incompetence Timeline,   More 

The Board of Elections: An Ongoing Disgrace(NYT)
Elections in New York City are an ongoing disgrace. In a city where everything is supposed to happen faster than anywhere else (hence the New York minute), the Board of Elections took more than two weeks to count votes after the primary election on September 10 — finally finishing on Friday, September 27. That’s an eon by today’s standards, and it’s an embarrassment. The board’s problems stem from the fact that it’s run by political party leaders who fill vacancies the old-fashioned way: with friends or relatives. A job at the city’s elections board is all about connections at a time when the city desperately needs professionals and experts — or at least people who know how to use a computer.
 


11.   Board of Elections does nothing as hundreds of Bronx votes go missing(NYDN Ed) Ignores warnings of busted ballot scanner  VOTE COUNTING in the fierce congressional battle between incumbent Charlie Rangel and his insurgent challenger Adriano Espaillat Board of Elections does nothing as hundreds of Bronx votes go missing(NYDN Ed) Ignores warnings of busted ballot scanner   (No Action by DOI)



More on the Corrupt BOE

Aide quits after Staten Island BP hopeful unloads on judges in petition dispute


 NYC: Wrong Voting Machines Because of Pay to Play Bribery

Another Cover Up
BOE Untouchables
BOE officials have said since early 2011 that the replacement of lever-based voting machines with paper ballots in 2010 will make it difficult to hold a runoff within two weeks of a primary. The board says it will be a tall order to count the votes and reprogram the machines for any runoffs two weeks later. Under state law, runoffs are required for any race in which no candidate receives at least 40%. Why did they buy scanner that cannot do the job.Voting Machine Smack-Down: Lobbyists Brawl(Village Voice) Today BOE officials are in Albany to try to work out a voting plan for this year. State lawmakers might pass a law to hold any runoffs three weeks after the initial vote, after refusing to dramatically reshape the election calendar by moving the primaries to June.

New York City's Board GoodFellas Gang
While the Daily News Has Gone After the Problems at the BOE Only True News Has Explained Why Nothing Every Changes With Who Runs the Board Organize Crime Mob   No reform in sight for bumbling NYC Board of Elections(NYDN) There are already several red flags emerging at the agency for this year’s citywide mayoral election. The board last week warned it might not be able to conduct runoffs two weeks after the Sept. 10 primaries. The board’s top job has been vacant for years, after Executive Director George Gonzalez was fired in 2010 for ballot

  BOE History of Corruption and Incompetence Timeline(True News) More

True News: NY's Political Power Gangs Have Block Any Real Investigation of the Board Of Elections Corruption
Gang Member Sean Crowley
Not to be outdone, ES&S has its own congressional brother on its team, John "Sean" Crowley of Davidoff Malito law firm and brother of Joe Crowley, who is not only a congressman but also head of the Queens Democratic Party (a major plus, since Queens Dems have their own commissioner on the board) *  Guilty Westchester attorney Anthony Mangone will help feds in two seperate probes(NYDN) * “Among ES&S’ fleet of hired guns was Anthony Mangone, a Westchester-based attorney and lobbyist who was indicted on Jan. 6 on charges of extortion, tax evasion and conspiracy to commit bribery in connection with a vote-selling scam.“ES&S paid Mangone’s firm, Mardon Consulting, $63,100 from January-December 2009.

Pay to Play BOE's Lemon Contract Gang Member Ragusa
According to True News tipster Phil Ragusa nephew has been paid over 50,000 from ES&S last year in a two month period.  That means that nephew Ragusa was paid from the same voting machine vendor that his grandfather's BOE commission approved after a battle of the lobbyists for which voting machine the BOE would buy. Nephew Ragusa was paid $1800 by a day by ES&S at the same time we was on the BOE payroll. On one 4 day pay period nephew Ragusa was paid over $9000 for 4 days work on and hourly rate that would have taken two weeks to reach the $9000 bill. NYC Board Of Elections: Inquests & Invoices(NYDN) * From the NY Daily News: The name would naturally jump out at anyone who's interested in Queens politics: Not only is Phil Ragusa the Queens GOP chairman, but his nephew -- also named Phil Ragusa -- works for the Board as a supervisor dealing with voting machines in the Queens warehouse. *Biagio Ragusa, the brother of Queens Republican boss Phil Ragusa. He worked in a board warehouse for 20 years before retiring recently. The job is now held by his son, also named Phil Ragusa.


The New Gangs of New York Are A Rogues Gallery of Thieves That Run the Board of Election
Gang Member Graves
The NYC Board of Elections suspended an employee who’s also a top Queens GOP official, Stephen Graves, after he was caught on tape soliciting a “finder’s fee” from a voting machine contractor in exchange for recommending a particular lobbyist.* Qns. elections official under fire for soliciting money from a contractor (NYP)



In 2007 the Media Knew About Savino Involvement In FBI Probe of the BOE Voting Machines

ESS Lobbyists Mangone and Bronx Boss Savino Law Partners
A few years back, the Westchester lawyer Anthony J. Mangone, law partner of Jay Savino, the Bronx Republican leader, earned a cool $100,000 lobbying the board on behalf of a voting machine company, Election Systems and Software. In 2010, the board gave the company a $50 million contract. The next day, federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Mangone in an unrelated bribery case. Mr. Mangone has pleaded guilty and is talking with investigators. Mr. Savino received a subpoena two years ago.Bronx GOP Chairman Jay Savino, and his deputy and NYC Board of Elections Commissioner J.C. Polanco, were hit with Federal subpoenas, as part of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s investigation into political corruption, in Westchester and in New York City. Here is a compilation of stories that ran in the New York Post, The Daily News and The Gothamist in 2010. According to the Post-”the subpoenas were sent ‘all over the place,’ said one source.” “Another source said Bharara began focusing on the voting-machine contract after indicting Anthony Mangone, a politically connected lawyer, for allegedly bribing a former Yonkers city councilwoman to switch her vote on two development projects. Mangone, who has ties to the Queens Republican Party, was one of several lobbyists hired by ES&S.”*Ralph Savino, the board’s $115,000-a-year deputy general counsel, who is a brother of Jay Savino, who just stepped down as Bronx Republican chairman. *Pamela Perkins, second in command to Sandow, is the wife of state Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Manhattan), and Beth Fossella, the voter registration coordinator, is the mother of former U.S. Rep. Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island).

AEG is Not the Only Problem Sheinkopf is Facing
Gang Member Sheinkopf
Also pitching hard for ES&S is the team of Hank Sheinkopf and Norman Levy. Sheinkopf was considered a die-hard Democratic consultant/lobbyist but he went to pitch for Team Bloomberg in the last election. Levy is one of comptroller Bill Thompson's closest cronies. Sheinkopf took the 5th when asked questions by the NY former state Inspector General Joseph Fisch about the AEG scandal  The Feds are also investigating a Board Of Election (the cesspool of political corruption) contract for new machines that Sheinkopf was a lobbyist for. Feds investigate switch by Board of Elections ... - New York Post  More on Sheinkopf 

The Competition for the Machine Contracts Was Extreme
Gang Stanley Schlein
The Daily News' Errol Louis reports today, the behind-the-scenes battle between Election Systems & Software and Dominion Voting Sytems(a/k/a Sequoia Voting) is being carried on by highly-paid proxies, namely the city's most politically wired lobbyists. Dominion/Sequoia's bid is being led by the estimable Stanley Schlein, who was Mayor Bloomberg's pick as chairman of the Civil Service Commission until he was found to be using the place and staff as his private law office. Schlein has a nice inside edge at the board, thanks to his long-time friendship with board deputy director George Gonzalez, a Bronx pol who is so cheap that he was billing the elections board for his morning coffee until the News caught him at it last year. Also on board for Dominion is the powerhouse Greenberg Traurig law firm, as well as Brown, McMahon, Weinraub which includes a brother of congressman Michael McMahon.

 
NYP Says the BOE Scanners Will Give NYC A Black Eyes in Tech Leadership, But Ignore the Corruption and Bribery That Lead to the Purchase of the Wrong 
 Machines 


 

Mayor Bloomberg fumed the board “better get its act together next year” after an Election Day debacle that featured hours-long lines at the polls, hordes of befuddled poll workers and the collapse of the board’s web site and phone lines.  The year? 2004.

New York’s techno-flop(NYP)
Amid headlines hailing New York as “Silicon Alley” over Yahoo’s billion-dollar purchase of Tumblr, the city’s reputation has taken a major hit — thanks to the Board of Elections.
The BOE says the optical scanners New York voters use for the primary can’t be reprogrammed in time for the runoff two weeks later. So if there’s a mayoral runoff in September, as appears likely, our state-of-the-art, $60 million system won’t be up to the job.“The only solution,” Mayor Bloomberg says, “is to bring back the old machines.” He means the one with the manual levers.  Seriously? America’s greatest city unable to run an election with modern technology? Under normal circumstances, the mayor might suggest the private sector would find a way to program voting machines the BOE bureaucrats can’t. But given the recent privacy-intrusion scandal involving reporters and terminals at a company he founded and shares his name, we suspect it’s an argument Mike Bloomberg might be reluctant to make right now.


For Years The NYT, Daily News, NYP, Mayors and Reform Politicians Have Been Demanding Changes At the Board of Elections.  Now in Spite of the 2012 Election Day Disaster and the BOE Commissioner Appointment Scandal They Remain Silent.  Could it be they really want the party leaders in control and the corruption at the BOE to continue. This means when they cried about the BOE caused long lines, closed polls by poor planing rob NYC of its Democracy they really did not mean it. Feds investigate switch by Board of Elections ... - New York Post * Everyone Wants to Keep the BOE's Corruption and Incompetence(True News)* Voting Machine Smack-Down: Lobbyists Brawl(Village Voice) *  Brewer Who Threw Her Council Investigation of the BOE Mishandling of Last Years General Elections is Also Silent of the BOE City Council New Commissioner Scandal. * City setting aside $800K to investigate the Board of Elections(Capital)
3/17/2013
BOE Deputy Director Calls Poll Workers Crooks
Democracy Killers the BOE and the Pols That Are Supposed to Oversee Them


Board of Elections fears poll workers would steal iPads(NYDN)

The agency floated the idea of spending $15 million to turn old voting machines into voting information kiosks. When probed why it wouldn't instead spend the money on iPads that could do perform the same tasks, a top executive admitted a fear that poll workers would steal them.





Halloran A IPad Would Be 2000% Cheeper Than Your BOE Kiosk . . . Think of the Moving Costs!
Councilman Dan Halloran asked Dawn Sandow, the Board of Election's deputy executive director why the agency didn't use iPads instead of trying to spend money on voting information kiosks. Sandow said that 'they won’t all come back, no matter what we chain it to,' suggesting poll workers might steal them.The beleaguered agency admitted as much at a City Council hearing Thursday as it floated the idea of spending $15 million to turn the city’s old and unused mechanical voting machines into information kiosks with touch screens.The transformation would cost $6,000 per machine, the board said — an estimate that prompted Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens) to whip out his $299 iPad.* Board Of Elections Unveils Kiosk To Help Transmission Of Voting Data(NY1)

Pot Calling the Kettle Black
It Takes A Crook to Know A Crook?
BOE History of Corruption and Incompetence Timeline(True News)




The Media Does Not Answer Why the Board Commissioner Voted for Scanner That Cannot Do the Job
From Today's WSJ
"Elections officials have said since early 2011 that the replacement of lever-based voting machines with paper ballots in 2010 will make it difficult to hold a runoff within two weeks of a primary. Runoffs between the top two finishers in citywide races are required when no candidate receives more than 40% of the vote. . .  Elections officials have said they can't count ballots, complete those steps and resolve disputes in the course of two weeks, especially if an election is close in a election that requires a runnoff." Officials See Big Hurdles to Elections(WSJ)

Expect Longer Lines Than in 2012 for Mayor's Election 
 The board plans to provide one ballot-scanner for every 2,500 eligible voters. Currently, it provides one scanner for every 1,400 voters.

City Council Planned Failure for the 2013 Elections
"They certainly didn't seem like they were necessarily going to be able to pull it off," said City Council Member Gale Brewer, an Upper West Side Democrat, after Board of Elections staffers spoke at a hearing. "It's a scary thought." Ms. Brewer wants larger changes to the city's election system, but said she expects the Legislature to approve only the addition of an extra week between the primary and a runoff, and certain procedural tweaks requested by the board. But the approach still presents hurdles. Officials would need more storage facilities and access to city buildings that serve as polling locations for longer than they're usually open. And the Board of Elections would have to decide two days after the primary which ballots to print. That could mean having to print multiple versions of the runoff ballot if the vote is close and the top two finishers aren't immediately clear.* Board Of Elections Pushes New Plan For Old Voting Machines During September Elections



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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BOE Has A Vote Count On 19 Days After the Primary
Final Results
Not one word by the NYT why it took so long and why the city spent $95 million on scanners that cannot count runoffs 
At Last, Your FULL NYC 2013 Results!(NYDN)
Board of Elections finishes count of New York mayoral primary(NYDN)
Vote Count Completed for Primary in New York(NY1)
de Blasio, a Democrat, finished with 40.81 percent in the primary, which was held Sept. 10. He exceeded the 40 percent threshold to avoid a runoff by about 5,600 votes.  The second-place finisher, William C. Thompson Jr., who received 26.14 percent, announced six days after the primary that he would not contest a runoff.* Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, at 15.74 percent; John C. Liu, the city comptroller, at 6.84 percent; and Anthony D. Weiner, a former congressman, at 4.94 percent. The final results show that Joseph J. Lhota, a former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, won with 52.75 percent. He was followed by John A. Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of the Gristedes supermarket chain, at 40.69 percent, and George T. McDonald, the founder of the Doe Fund, at 6.38 percent. Overall turnout, as predicted, was small: roughly 22 percent. About 692,000 of the city’s 2.97 million registered Democrats voted, or 23 percent. Among Republicans, the turnout was even smaller: about 61,000 of the city’s 471,000 Republicans voted, or 13 percent.* In Brooklyn, 2 voters wrote in Vito Lopez for public advocate, 1 wrote Ed Koch, another wrote Ralph Nader




Bloomberg Blames the NY Times For the BOE Selection of the Voting Machines That Do Not Work
 The mayor said on the radio this morning that it was the NY Times that is causing the voting crisis in the 2013 mayoral election.  He said for years the paper pushed against computer voting in dozens of editorals. Which he  says is causing the current voting panic.  Bloomberg said banks, Wall Street and everyone is using computers and does not understand why the BOE went to these filling in the ovals on tiny printed paper ballots. How to Trust Electronic Voting(NYT, 2009)


Is the NYT Embarrassed At What They Did?
This is the Last Story the NYT Wrote About the BOE 
Date November 6, 2012 Chaos at New York City Polls Amid New Rules and Voting Machines(NYT)


3/14/2013

___________________________________________________________________________________
Board of Elections

says city budget "sets this agency up for failure" in conducting 2013 elections. Another election day debacle to come?NYC Bd of Elxns testifies that current budget proposal sets it 'up for failure' to run 3, possibly 4, elections this budget year* Councilman Halloran: new voting machines "for the record, suck...lever machines are something I wish for." * These machines would cost $6000 each. pulls out his iPad, which he says was $299 and can do basically the same stuff.* Board Of Elections Unveils Kiosk To Help Transmission Of Voting Data (NY1)
* Embattled NYC Board of Elections thinks clunkier equipment's better... because it fears workers would steal iPads(NYDN)



3/12/2013
Yesterday True News Uncovered More Corruption At the Board of Election that Caused Many Sick and Elderly New Yorkers to Leave the Polling Sites Last Election Day Without Voting

Yesterday True News Exclusive
BOE Corruption Investigation

True News Has Confirmed From A Current Top Executive That BOE warehouse employee Phil Ragusa the nephew of the Queens GOP leader is on the payroll of ESS as A Paid Consultant.  More



Media As Puppetmasters as Pols, Pregressives and Liberals Shut Up
The Media Will Report Efforts to Go Back to the Old Machines But Will Not Investigate the Corrupt Reasons Why the City Choose The Scanners That Cannot Do the Job


Not Only is Investigative Reporting in NYC Dead, But As Importantly the Public and Media Ability To Further Those Investigations is Also Dead




3/11/2013
True News Exclusive
BOE Corruption Investigation

True News Has Confirmed From A Current Top Executive That BOE warehouse employee Phil Ragusa the nephew of the Queens GOP leader is on the payroll of ESS as A Paid Consultant. 



New Yorker's Were Prevented From or Had A Hard Time Voting Because of A Corrupt Contract
The BOE purchased the scanners and a maintence contract from ES&S that every New Yorkers now knows cannot do the job of allowing voters to vote and counting them.

True News Has Found Out Some of Those Responsible for NYC Inability to Count Its Votes
Back on February 20 True News and then the Daily News were unsure were unsure if the Phil Ragusa named on the BOE scanner was the nephew of Queens GOP leader Phil Ragusa. True News has continued its investigation and now because of a insider tipster we are sure. The crimes committed are large and include the robbing of the right to vote by approving a new voting system for New York not based on the ability to do the job but based on a political payoff

Pay to Play BOE's Lemon Contract
According to True News tipster Phil Ragusa has been paid over 50,000 from ES&S last year in a two month period.  That means that nephew Ragusa was paid from the same voting machine vendor that his grandfather's BOE commission approved after a battle of the lobbyists for which machine the BOE would buy. Nephew Ragusa was paid $1800 by a day by ES&S at the same time we was on the BOE payroll. On one 4 day pay period nephew Ragusa was paid over $9000 for 4 days work on and hourly rate that would have taken two weeks to reach the $9000 bill,


True News Has Also Learned 
It was reported in November that ESS sent the check to Long Island and could not have been the younger Phil Ragusa
Grandson Phil Ragusa lives in Long Island and use his father address in Queens to quality for the BOE job. According to True News Tipster the address used is his father's Biagio Ragusa.  Who retired in 2012 after 20 years of service at the Queens warehouse, and his son, Phil, ended up getting that job. Vendor kickbacks could be common at the BOE There are also reports of other BOE vendors hiring BOE employees. One of the vendor who was advising the BOE on how to use the failed scanning machines was Gartner who is also in the middle of the city as an advisor in the city's failed 911 system and the corrupt CityTime project* NYC Board Of Elections: Inquests & Invoices(NYDN)


Media and Political Cover Up Of Corruption At the BOE At the Same Time They Ask to Go Back to the Old Machines

As the Daily News and Pols Push for Going Back to the old lever machines nobody only True News has investigated how we wound up with the scanners who cannot do the job for NYC. In addition for pushing for new machines everyone should be asking to an investigation on payoff were more important than ability to do the job were more important in the selection of the city's voting system that we are stuck with! * City Board of Elections Mulls Lever Machines for Upcoming Vote(WNYC)* Pull the levers of power (NYDN Ed)* Billion-dollar ballots(NYDN Ed) * New York Elections Need a Makeover(NY Mag) * Madness of the machines(NYDN Ed) 

This is the Last Story the NYT Wrote About the BOE Slow Count
Date November 6, 2012
Chaos at New York City Polls Amid New Rules and Voting Machines(NYT)
The only time the NYT wrote about the BOE inability to count the votes when it did an editoral to help the candidate they are supporting for mayor with a quick primary . * Move New York City’s Primaries to June(NYT) *Primary Dysfunction: Timing The New York City Primary | City & State




Council Looks At Runoff Not Why the BOE Spent $95 Million On Scanners That Can Count Runoff Votes
Council members push to end costly runoffs(NYP) After holding a primary with old machines without the media questing  why the scanner were  purchased.  Now the council wants to end the runoffs without talking about why the BOE has scanner that don't  work.   For those that  want to eliminate the runoff do you really want to elect someone to citywide office with 20% of the vote.  The city of Boston just finish primaries that required runoffs in  every race.  It not that New York City is dumber than,it  is  that we allow Tammany Hall to continue to operate the BOE


 

The Problem is the People Who Have Been Fighting the BOE For Years  . . . Have Become Quiet
Instead of using the BOE's commissioners appointment Fuck Up to force changes, the media and reforms remain silent to allow the corrupt party leaders to cover their tracks and fix the problems

For Years The NYT, Daily News, NYP, Mayors and Reform Politicians Have Been Demanding Changes At the Board of Elections.  Now in Spite of the 2012 Election Day Disaster and the BOE Commissioner Appointment Scandal They Remain Silent.  Could it be they really want the party leaders in control and the corruption at the BOE to continue. This means when they cried about the BOE caused long lines, closed polls by poor planing rob NYC of its Democracy they really did not mean it. Feds investigate switch by Board of Elections ... - New York Post * Everyone Wants to Keep the BOE's Corruption and Incompetence(True News)* Voting Machine Smack-Down: Lobbyists Brawl(Village Voice)


Many Voters in the GOP Voted in the Dem Primary Because the Operators Did Not Set the Machine Right
In plain sight (NYDN Ed)

The Board of Elections can screw up even the simplest things
Voters handed the cards to a clerk at the booth. The clerk set a dial to engage the proper party levers. Green card meant: set the machine to register votes for Democratic candidates. Pink card meant: set the machine to register voters for Republican candidates. Foolproof — except if the clerk is colorblind. Which she was. True story.* Machine problems upset some voters during Tuesday's primaries(Queens Chronicle)___________________________________________________________________________________
BOE Sucks

BOE Melt Down Primary Feared

True News Has Reported Not enough lever machines for ever ed. If voters turn out here your lines and delays guys
The possibility of “a nightmare scenario” has emerged where the results of the NYC mayoral primary are still in dispute due to chaos at the Board of Elections as the date of the final runoff approaches. 


They steal money (NYDN Ed)
The thieves at the Board of Elections must be stopped before they lavish more than $120,000 on an army of patronage drones in a preposterous boondoggle that only these people would have the nerve to dream up.

NYC Board Of Elections Moving Closer To Deploying Old Lever Machines For Primary | New York Daily News
Legacy of failed policies:New York Leads US In Income Loss | WWNY TV 7 - News, Weather and Sports for | Local News  
Gov. Cuomo signs bill to computerize election returns in New York State(NYDN)

The city Board of Elections will today count 58 ballots from the election 9 months ago prompting the Daily News to call on the city Department of Investigation’s new unit to uncover waste, fraud and abuse to probe the BOE: http://nydn.us/19U0rDL

Had lunch with new Board of Elections executive director Michael Ryan. Here's what he had to say about new gig  


BOE Corruption Tax?
They Do Not Care What You Think
New York City Elections Are Becoming Ever More Costly(NYT)Board Of Elections Defends Performance On Election Day (NY1) * Huh? City Board of Elections officials gush over perfor (NYDN) 
 
BOE Know It Can Get Away With Anything
Quinn and Government Operations Chairwoman Brewer  Missing On BOE Oversight
Brewer Who Threw Her Council Investigation of the BOE Mishandling of Last Years General Elections is Also Silent of the BOE City Council New Commissioner Scandal.
The right of every Amreican to a fair election is not important to most of the NYC  media.  The Tammany Hall system of control by the Board of Elections is on fire and most of media and so called progressive leader who know what is going on and what can be accomplished in reforming the board when is is weak and vernalable remain silent.  For months True News has shown the incompetency and corruption of the BOE over and over. Last November New Yorkers waiting in long lines caused by scaners that broke and lack of staffing at the polls caused by the board incomptent managers understood just how messed up the BOE is.  But thier leaders have not step up to demand change.  Instead they remain erie silent.  This cover up has continue even after a commission coup de tar by lead by Councilman Eric Ulrich. Brewer Threw Her Hearing on the BOE Screw Up on Election Day 

To Look Why the BOE Fails Look to Kellner
 Doug Kellner the force who pushed for the scanning system is still the man the BOE and pols listen to (True News) * City Board of Elections still leaderless(Brooklyn Eagle) * On July 16, 2012 True News Wrote  The City Council Is Responsible for the Corruption At the BOE and Can Reform the Place If It Wanted Too   *True News: A Tammany Hall Fixer Tries to Save the BOE for the Bad ...
 

Another Ragusa Appointee Shakes Down Another Voting Vendor And No Criminal Charges
Queens GOP Boss Phil Ragusa's BOE Appointee Graves Asked for A Bribe to Support Company for New Voted Machines, His Office Was Raided by the FBI and He is Out of the BOE

The NYC Board of Elections suspended an employee who’s also a top Queens GOP official, Stephen Graves, after he was caught on tape soliciting a “finder’s fee” from a voting machine contractor in exchange for recommending a particular lobbyist. Qns. elections official under fire for soliciting money from a contractor (NYP) he city’s Board of Elections has suspended an employee who is a top official in the Queens Republican Party after being notified that he was caught on tape soliciting a $25,000 “finder’s fee” from a company competing for a $65 million contract in 2009.  Department of Investigation provided information to the board that Stephen Graves, first vice chairman of the Queens GOP and a $66,392-a-year board employee, asked for the money from Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems as it was battling rival Elections Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb., to sell the city its first electronic voting machines.

Not Even Ballot Fixing By the BOE is Investigated
Head of Board of Elections Fired One Week Before Election (WNYC) Sources at the Board of Elections say Gonzalez was fired over irregularities that initially appeared on the ballot of a special election in Queens for the City Council seat in the 28th district.Gonzalez Firing, DOI Investigation, Could Ease Awaited Bloomberg BoE Power Play(CHN)


BOE History of Corruption and Incompetence Timeline(True News)
NYC Board Of Elections: Inquests & Invoices(NYDN)

Back to the Future 
BOE Technicians are Examining the Old Lever Voting Machines Today in Redhook Where They All Kept


 4/25/2013

True News Does Not Need 10 Cents to Find the Corruption At BOE
The New York City Department of Investigation will get approximately $824,000 to employ six investigators to probe alleged fraud and waste at the New York City Board of Elections. City setting aside $800K to investigate the Board of Elections(Capital)Unit Aims to Improve City’s Elections Board(NYT) The Department of Investigation announced its intentions to create a unit to investigate fraud, waste, and corruption problems, with subpoena power, at the New York City Board of Elections, with the unit operational by September *  The Daily News outlines the challenges that lie ahead for Department of Investigation Commissioner Gill Hearn in establishing a unit to investigate fraud, waste, and corruption at the New York City Board of Elections: 

The DN Just Does Not Get What is Going On At the BOE
First: the DOI Should Not Be Managing the BOE It Finding Corruption
Second: The reason there was over staffing in the 2011 off year election was that most of the voters in that very small turnout election were election workers.
Wasteland, N.Y.C.(NYDN)
Talk about shooting ducks: The Department of Investigation has established a six-person team to search out fraud, waste and corruption at the city Board of Elections.

6. Areas of Corruption Inside BOE the DOI Should Investigate
1. Robert Hornak the director of machines for the Board of Election testified in sworn statements to the court that  the Queens leadership executive committee members met and voted Nov. 1 to reappoint Commissioner Stupp.
2. The Feds are also investigating a Board Of Election (the cesspool of political corruption) ES&S contract for new machines that Sheinkopf was a lobbyist for. Feds investigate switch by Board of Elections ... - New York Post 
3. The NYC Board of Elections suspended an employee who’s also a top Queens GOP official, Stephen Graves, after he was caught on tape soliciting a “finder’s fee” from a voting machine contractor in exchange for recommending a particular lobbyist. 
4.  Were BOE Commissioners legally holding Office?
5. Why were the poll watchers reassigned in the Adriano Espaillat race to help Rangel?
6. WNYC Radio and Others Reported the Last Executive Director Gonzalez Was Fired 26 Months Ago Attempted Ballot Fixing   
7. Ulrich campaign accuses BOE of obstruction (CrainsNY)
8. Look at who owns the properties the BOE leases
9. Voting Machine Smack-Down: Lobbyists Brawl(Village Voice)
10. True News  Phil Ragusa nephew has been paid over 50,000 from ES&S last year in a two month period after Ragusa commissioner on the BOE voted for the ES&S contract.     

BOE History of Corruption and Incompetence Timeline (True News)

True News Has Also Learned 
It was reported in November that ESS sent the check to Long Island and could not have been the younger Phil Ragusa
Grandson Phil Ragusa lives in Long Island and use his father address in Queens to quality for the BOE job. According to True News Tipster the address used is his father's Biagio Ragusa.  Who retired in 2012 after 20 years of service at the Queens warehouse, and his son, Phil, ended up getting that job. Vendor kickbacks could be common at the BOE There are also reports of other BOE vendors hiring BOE employees. One of the vendor who was advising the BOE on how to use the failed scanning machines was Gartner who is also in the middle of the city as an advisor in the city's failed 911 system and the corrupt CityTime project* NYC Board Of Elections: Inquests & Invoices(NYDN)


Media and Political Cover Up Of Corruption At the BOE At the Same Time They Ask to Go Back to the Old Machines

As the Daily News and Pols Push for Going Back to the old lever machines nobody only True News has investigated how we wound up with the scanners who cannot do the job for NYC. In addition for pushing for new machines everyone should be asking to an investigation on payoff were more important than ability to do the job were more important in the selection of the city's voting system that we are stuck with! * City Board of Elections Mulls Lever Machines for Upcoming Vote(WNYC)* Pull the levers of power (NYDN Ed)* Billion-dollar ballots(NYDN Ed) * New York Elections Need a Makeover(NY Mag) * Madness of the machines(NYDN Ed) 

This is the Last Story the NYT Wrote About the BOE Slow Count
Date November 6, 2012
Chaos at New York City Polls Amid New Rules and Voting Machines(NYT)
The only time the NYT wrote about the BOE inability to count the votes when it did an editoral to help the candidate they are supporting for mayor with a quick primary . * Move New York City’s Primaries to June(NYT) *Primary Dysfunction: Timing The New York City Primary | City & State

 

The Problem is the People Who Have Been Fighting the BOE For Years  . . . Have Become Quiet
Instead of using the BOE's commissioners appointment Fuck Up to force changes, the media and reforms remain silent to allow the corrupt party leaders to cover their tracks and fix the problems

For Years The NYT, Daily News, NYP, Mayors and Reform Politicians Have Been Demanding Changes At the Board of Elections.  Now in Spite of the 2012 Election Day Disaster and the BOE Commissioner Appointment Scandal They Remain Silent.  Could it be they really want the party leaders in control and the corruption at the BOE to continue. This means when they cried about the BOE caused long lines, closed polls by poor planing rob NYC of its Democracy they really did not mean it. Feds investigate switch by Board of Elections ... - New York Post * Everyone Wants to Keep the BOE's Corruption and Incompetence(True News)* Voting Machine Smack-Down: Lobbyists Brawl(Village Voice)

BOE Corruption Tax?
They Do Not Care What You Think
New York City Elections Are Becoming Ever More Costly(NYT)Board Of Elections Defends Performance On Election Day (NY1) * Huh? City Board of Elections officials gush over perfor (NYDN) 
 
BOE Know It Can Get Away With Anything
Quinn and Government Operations Chairwoman Brewer  Missing On BOE Oversight
Brewer Who Threw Her Council Investigation of the BOE Mishandling of Last Years General Elections is Also Silent of the BOE City Council New Commissioner Scandal.
The right of every Amreican to a fair election is not important to most of the NYC  media.  The Tammany Hall system of control by the Board of Elections is on fire and most of media and so called progressive leader who know what is going on and what can be accomplished in reforming the board when is is weak and vernalable remain silent.  For months True News has shown the incompetency and corruption of the BOE over and over. Last November New Yorkers waiting in long lines caused by scaners that broke and lack of staffing at the polls caused by the board incomptent managers understood just how messed up the BOE is.  But thier leaders have not step up to demand change.  Instead they remain erie silent.  This cover up has continue even after a commission coup de tar by lead by Councilman Eric Ulrich. Brewer Threw Her Hearing on the BOE Screw Up on Election Day 

To Look Why the BOE Fails Look to Kellner
 Doug Kellner the force who pushed for the scanning system is still the man the BOE and pols listen to (True News) * City Board of Elections still leaderless(Brooklyn Eagle) * On July 16, 2012 True News Wrote  The City Council Is Responsible for the Corruption At the BOE and Can Reform the Place If It Wanted Too   *True News: A Tammany Hall Fixer Tries to Save the BOE for the Bad ...


Election Law Protects Corrupt Pols
The state Board of Elections' enforcement counsel decided to reduce the scope of an effort to freeze the assets of campaign treasurers with judgments against them and the banks that held their funds, because of restrictions in state law, the Times Union reports: * The NYS Board of Elections' "test group" for stepped-up enforcement letters is small indeed:

 

Another Ragusa Appointee Shakes Down Another Voting Vendor And No Criminal Charges
Queens GOP Boss Phil Ragusa's BOE Appointee Graves Asked for A Bribe to Support Company for New Voted Machines, His Office Was Raided by the FBI and He is Out of the BOE

The NYC Board of Elections suspended an employee who’s also a top Queens GOP official, Stephen Graves, after he was caught on tape soliciting a “finder’s fee” from a voting machine contractor in exchange for recommending a particular lobbyist. Qns. elections official under fire for soliciting money from a contractor (NYP) he city’s Board of Elections has suspended an employee who is a top official in the Queens Republican Party after being notified that he was caught on tape soliciting a $25,000 “finder’s fee” from a company competing for a $65 million contract in 2009.  Department of Investigation provided information to the board that Stephen Graves, first vice chairman of the Queens GOP and a $66,392-a-year board employee, asked for the money from Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems as it was battling rival Elections Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb., to sell the city its first electronic voting machines.

Not Even Ballot Fixing By the BOE is Investigated
Head of Board of Elections Fired One Week Before Election (WNYC) Sources at the Board of Elections say Gonzalez was fired over irregularities that initially appeared on the ballot of a special election in Queens for the City Council seat in the 28th district.Gonzalez Firing, DOI Investigation, Could Ease Awaited Bloomberg BoE Power Play(CHN)


BOE History of Corruption and Incompetence Timeline(True News)
NYC Board Of Elections: Inquests & Invoices(NYDN)

Back to the Future 
BOE Technicians are Examining the Old Lever Voting Machines Today in Redhook Where They All Kept


4/24/2013

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BOE Corruption

True News Does Not Need 10 Cents to Find the Corruption At BOE
The New York City Department of Investigation will get approximately $824,000 to employ six investigators to probe alleged fraud and waste at the New York City Board of Elections. City setting aside $800K to investigate the Board of Elections(Capital)



 4/4/2013

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The BOE and the Arrests


Why is the NYC Department of Investigation doing comptroller type audits of the BOE when they should doing criminal investigations to clean the place up? City report outlines millions wasted by Board of Elections for overstaffing 2011 elections







Question #1 Were the Voting Scanners Purchased Because They Work for New York Or Where They Because The Party Leaders and Board Commissioners Got the Most Bribe Money?
True News Has Confirmed From A Current Top Executive That BOE warehouse employee Phil Ragusa the Grandson of the Queens GOP leader is on the payroll of ES&S as A Paid Consultant. Back on February 20 True News and then the Daily News were unsure were unsure if the Phil Ragusa named on the BOE scanner was the grandson of Queens GOP leader Phil Ragusa. True News has continued its investigation and now because of a insider tipster we are sure. The crimes committed are large and include the robbing of the right to vote and the rights to live in a democracy of every New Yorker


BOE Head of Machines Illegally Paid by Halloran
Robert Hornak who at the same time he was working at the Board of Elections was illegally getting paid by Councilman Dan Halloran through his consultant company Lexington Public Affairs. It is illegal for BOE employees to run a consultant company.  Hornak is Executive director of Queens County GOP.  His former boss and pal in the Queens GOP party was Vincent Tabone until he quit yesterday after getting arrested the day before

Hornak Also Worked for An Employee of the BOE Who Office Was Raided By the FBI

In April of 2012 True News reported that Hornak was working with Steven Graves who office at the BOE was raided by the FBI as part of their investigation of corruption in the purchase of the new voting machines.Hornak also worked worked with Jay Golub and with accused BOE briber Steven Graves on the Victor Babb City Council Campaign.  Sources: Queens GOP Leader Facing Major Corruption Charges Resigns(NY1)

DOI Going After the Secret Lobbyist Can Start the Clean Up of Corruption at the BOE 
The city’s Board of Elections was notified two years ago that Graves wascaught on tape soliciting a $25,000 “finder’s fee” from a company competing for a $65 million voting machine contract in 2009.  “He was recommending the use of a particular lobbyist,” said one source. “In exchange for that he wanted a finder’s fee.” The lobbyist, who was not identified, was supposed to receive $250,000 a year for five years, the source said. All DOI has to do is expose who was the lobbyist who Graves want to receive the $1.250,000.  The chances are that lobbyist is a BOE lobbyist insider or Queens GOP operator who knows where many of the commissioner who run the board bodies are buried.  Note the sting tapes on Graves were made by the BOE vender not DOI
What About the Sworn Papers Filed in Court by Ragusa to Save His BOE Commissioner?

Is DOI, the DA or the AG investigating if the papers were real or forged?  Robert Hornak the director of machines for the Board of Election testified in sworn statements to the court that  the Queens leadership executive committee members met and voted Nov. 1 to reappoint Stupp, and that on Nov. 3, Ragusa signed a certificate saying so. That information was to have been mailed to the City Clerk and City Council on Nov. 19 -- although apparently neither envelope ever arrived. Hornak sworn statement said he mail the papers to reappoint Stupp on Nov. 19. to the executive committee.Ognibene said the gathering at which the organization members supposedly agreed -- having met at Dante's Caterers on Nov. 1 -- to re-nominate Stupp would have coincided with "GOP night," which is more of a cocktail party than a formal party proceeding. "I don’t know if there was ever a notice" of such a meeting, Ognibene continued. "I think they looked back and said, 'Where we all together where we can say we did this?'"

In 2007 Knew About Savino Involvement In FBI Probe of the BOE Voting Machines
Savino and two Bronx GOP associates, Dawn Sandow and Frank Tosi, were reportedly under investigation in connection with their work at the city Board of Elections. In 2010, Savino and others were subpoenaed in connection with a federal probe into bidding on voting machines.

Anthony Mangone, 37, of Purchase faces up to 45 years in jail when he is sentenced  for conspiracy, bribery, extortion and tax evasion.
But his sentence is expected to be a fraction of that in exchange for his cooperation in two ongoing probes in which he is involved  New York City's Board of Elections.

ESS Lobbyists Mangone and Bronx Boss Savino Law Partners
A few years back, the Westchester lawyer Anthony J. Mangone, law partner of Jay Savino, the Bronx Republican leader, earned a cool $100,000 lobbying the board on behalf of a voting machine company, Election Systems and Software. In 2010, the board gave the company a $50 million contract. The next day, federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Mangone in an unrelated bribery case. Mr. Mangone has pleaded guilty and is talking with investigators. Mr. Savino received a subpoena two years ago.Bronx GOP Chairman Jay Savino, and his deputy and NYC Board of Elections Commissioner J.C. Polanco, were hit with Federal subpoenas, as part of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s investigation into political corruption, in Westchester and in New York City. Here is a compilation of stories that ran in the New York Post, The Daily News and The Gothamist in 2010. According to the Post-”the subpoenas were sent ‘all over the place,’ said one source.” “Another source said Bharara began focusing on the voting-machine contract after indicting Anthony Mangone, a politically connected lawyer, for allegedly bribing a former Yonkers city councilwoman to switch her vote on two development projects. Mangone, who has ties to the Queens Republican Party, was one of several lobbyists hired by ES&S.” Guilty Westchester attorney Anthony Mangone will help feds in two seperate probes(NYDN)


Pay to Play BOE's Lemon Contract
According to True News tipster Phil Ragusa has been paid over 50,000 from ES&S last year in a two month period.  That means that grandson Ragusa was paid from the same voting machine vendor that his grandfather's BOE commission approved after a battle of the lobbyists for which machine the BOE would buy. Grandson Ragusa was paid $1800 by a day by ES&S at the same time we was on the BOE payroll. On one 4 day pay period Grandson Ragusa was paid over $9000 for 4 days work on and hourly rate that would have taken two weeks to reach the $9000 bill,



True News Has Also Learned 
Grandson Phil Ragusa lives in Long Island and use his father address in Queens to quality for the BOE job. According to True News Tipster the address used is his father's Biagio Ragusa.  Who retired in 2012 after 20 years of service at the Queens warehouse, and his son, Phil, ended up getting that job.

3/6/2013
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Board of Election Plan B

BOE Math Failure and Nobody in A City of 8 Million Notices
The BOE which took over three months to count just the paper ballots in the 2012 elections. Now has a plan to count all the votes in a citywide runoff, which will have hundreds of thousands more votes, in less than 2 weeks.  It is one thing to count the 2012 results where nobody but the BOE cares about to cover their asses and get the job done.  It is quite another standard to count a primary which if close will end up in court. A court ordered recount will take weeks if not months, as candidates fight over the meaning of each ballot.

120 Days After the 2012 Election the BOE Found More Votes

There are only 14 days between the mayoral primary and runoff The New York City Board of Elections approved a contingency plan for potential runoff elections in the three citywide primary races, with plans to use new electronic voting machines but also print ballots before the results are official Board Of Elections Approves Contingency Plan For Potential Mayoral Primary Runoff Election(NY1)




3/4/2013
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BOE Count

The BOE Plan for A Citywide Runoff



As a backup, nycboe says it will conduct runoff with all paper ballots #nyc #2013, meaning worst case boe to hand count thousands of ballots

As part of runoff plan, nycboe will increase the number of voters per scanner. Officials say may mean waits to vote are longer #nyc #2013
 




NYC Party Leaders Hire Elected Officials to Work in Their Criminal Gangs

Organized Crime Politics
Ballot Corruption by Political Mob Bosses

The leaders of New York’s Political Mob are the City’s party leaders who exist with the Tammany Hall power control template, unchallenged and unaccountable to the voters in New York’s broken down election system. Their headquarters is the Board of Elections. Political mob bosses soldiers are campaign consultants who also operate as lobbyists and have the same relationship with the voters as Bernie Madoff had to his investors. In this war the 4th estate are enablers of the political mob bosses covering campaigns only as horse race and simply reprinting the candidate’s press releases.  In this swamp culture the political party leaders have become the new gangs of New York. Protect by the DA who need them to get elected.  .NY Political Parties for Sale: Ballot Corruption(True News) * Tammany’s Ballot Control Again and Again (TN) * Organized Crime Politics - Episode Two: The Rigged Election System * The DN argues against a special election, which would enable major party bosses to pick the candidates. 




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More on those Arrested


Smith had no chance of winning, he likely had his sights on the Campaign Finance Board’s 6-to-1 fund matching. As a mayoral candidate, he could get a maximum match of $1,050 for each $175 donation.
The Smith Campaign Slush Fund
Smith blew $2M in elex cash (NYP) State Sen. Malcolm Smith blew through more than $2 million in campaign cash over five years — bunking at ritzy hotels, dining at four-star restaurants and even traveling to China, campaign- finance records show.  The lavish spending included a November 2011 junket to China, where Smith and his entourage forked over $1,148 to stay at the Beijing Grand and about $2,500 for other lodgings. That same month, the one-time Democratic Senate leader shelled out more than $1,000 at four of the city’s top steakhouses — Ben Benson’s, Capital Grille, Bobby Van’s and Smith & Wollensky. FBI agents yesterday served a subpoena on Smith’s Queens office as the senator stayed out of sight.*The king of Queens graft(NYP Ed) Smith has been linked to so many dubious schemes the FBI must have had an entire branch on his tail: Bid-rigging for the Aqueduct racino. Co-founding a Katrina charity that saw nearly $30,000 vanish. Diverting campaign funds for lavish personal trips and meals. Even opening (and then ruining) a Queens charter school in what appears to be a plot to boost home sales for a developer and big-time donor.

Smith and Halloran Never Google The Informer
If they Did They Would Have Detective Something Was Not Kosher
Shoulda known he was trouble (NYP)They should have just Googled the guy. A simple Web search would have shown state Sen. Malcolm Smith and City Councilman Dan Halloran that they were getting into bed with a shady developer who lost a $126 million lawsuit over a failed real-estate...Moses “Mark” Stern, who was the feds’ confidential informant against the pols, took out a massive loan from Citigroup to buy 11 shopping malls in 2007 — and his company promptly went bankrupt, according to court documents.  *Scandal Suggests Narrower Corruption Law Still Survived (NYT) * Case Spurred Bribery Probe(WSJ)



Savino Not A Bronx Resident Says Ne Needed Money to Pay the Rent
Bronx GOP boss adds to list of corruption(NYDN)Joseph (Jay) Savino, the chairman of the Bronx County Republican Committee, took a $15,000 bribe in a plot to get state Sen. Malcolm Smith on the ballot for New York City mayor. He also doesn't live in the Bronx, was subpoenaed in connection with a federal probe into bidding on voting machines and has dined out on Bronx GOP funds.Savino, the chairman of the Bronx County Republican Committee, maintains a Bronx voting address but is listed in the federal complaint unsealed Tuesday as living in Rockland County.

The Only Power GOP Leaders Have Now is to Make Money Off of Ballot Acess
Savino's Double Dipping Bribe

The party boss ended up allegedly taking just $15,000 in cash from an undercover agent on Feb. 14, $10,000 less than Queens GOP boss Vincent Tabone.Not that Savino actually supported Smith. Having backed former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion for weeks, Savino switched camps on Feb. 20 — less than a week after the alleged $15,000 payment — and endorsed ex-MTA chairman Joe Lhota for mayor. Savino himself was a top aide under GOP state Sen. Guy Velella when, in 2004, the longtime Bronx power broker pleaded guilty to accepting bribes in exchange for state contracts and housing subsidies. Savino took over the Bronx GOP when Velella went to jail.Savino, an Iona Preparatory School and Iona College graduate, was quite clear about what he wanted from Smith, according to the corruption complaint: $25,000 in an envelope in exchange for his support. “Everyone has to pay their mortgage,” Savino said, according to the complaint.



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Thompson Concedes
de Blasio at 40.7% After Recount
Not Every Vote Needs to Be Counted - Thompson Says He is Out of  the Race
  1. "Nothing more Beautiful Than Democrat Unity "
  2.               Bill de Blasio
  3. 28m
    Sources to the AmNews have confirmed that Bill Thompson will concede today all 11 a.m. to avoid a runoff and endorse Bill de Blasio  Per latest canvass, de Blasio was up to 40.47% of the vote, so not clear Thompson making much of a choice
    1. How cld pro like Cuomo give a stump speech w/10 items on podium index card to kidnap deBlasio-Thomp moment? Weird.


    BREAKING Mayoral also-ran Bill Thompson throws in the towel Monday after recanvassing shows no shift in vote
    Cuomo will hold an event with Bill de Blasio and Bill Thompson later this morning to help bring an end to the primary (Capital)  The sources said Thompson is confident enough with the results he’s seen so far in the re-canvass of voting machines to believe that de Blasio has cinched the nomination and has more than 40 percent of the vote needed to avoid a runoff.* Bill Thompson expected to officially drop bid for Mayor with 80,000 votes yet to be counted according to The * Six key Thompson supporters switch after a meeting with de Blasio (capital) * Thompson out of mayor's race  * Gov. Cuomo is expected to attend the event at City Hall where Bill Thompson will end his bid for mayor. * Even some supporters were surprised there wasn't a runoff.

    ‘Nothing More Beautiful Than Democratic Unity’: Bill Thompson Endorses Bill de Blasio(NYO)HE'S OUT: Bill Thompson concedes to Bill de Blasio in New York City mayoral Democratic primary(NYDN) * Thompson Concedes to de Blasio in Mayoral Primary(NYT) * Suddenly, here's Cuomo, headlining de Blasio-Thompson unity fest via In New York City, Democrats Avoid The Circling Firing Squad: Former New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson of...   * VIDEO: Bill Thompson and Bill de Blasio Unite Under The Wings - See more at: *Full Story: Bill Thompson Concedes to To Bill de Blasio In Democratic Primary | New York Daily News * Cuomo re Thompson: "It's a very tough day, personally. I know that. Ive been there myself." cc:
    *Cuomo: This Was Thompson’s Own Decision(YNN) * Bill and Hillary Clinton are expected to make their endorsement of Bill de Blasio official in the coming weeks. (WSJ) * "Mayoral hopeful Bill Thompson threw in the towel" * RT De Blasio re Cuomo: "What he has done for this state is nothing short of miraculous." * Democrats Stress Party Unity Heading Towards General Election  (NY1)
    *For Thompson, a Disappointing End to a Not-Quite-Compelling Quest(NYT)
    * Thompson Ends Bid for Mayor(WSJ) The Former Comptroller Concedes to Democratic Nominee Bill de Blasio
    Dante Hair Thompson Camp Reaction
    * Thompson campaign fought over how to respond to "Dante" ad. Nice details in thils piece:
    * Greg Meeks on why Thompson lost blacks and Latinos to de Blasio: "It's the message" (WSJ)
    Thompson Ends Bid for New York City Mayor(WSJ)
    Mayoral candidate Bill Thompson retains hope during Mexican Day Parade while all votes are recounted(NYDN) * Thompson’s mayoral campaign running out of time — and money(NYP)Despite his vow to press on, Thompson’s appearances Sunday were low-key in comparison to de Blasio’s campaign events, which included a morning stop at a Brooklyn church. Thompson insists he is determined to continue his City Hall bid until every primary vote is recounted, but he won’t get additional campaign funds unless he qualifies for a runoff. Thompson has an estimated $463,000 hanging in the balance. 'You cannot have a winner before all the votes are counted': Bill Thompson remains optimistic for a runoff while enjoying the festivities at the Mexican Day Parade(NYDN) * Mayoral election returns reveal that Bill Thompson's big endorsements didn't translate to votes(NYDN)Despite endorsements from many of the city's prominent black and Hispanic leaders, Bill Thompson was soundly defeated by rival Bill de Blasio in the majority of those areas. Are voters becoming less reliant on backers? * "Displaying a fluffy 'fro, [Dante de Blasio] became a symbol for progress, acceptance, diversity and freedom. * Merryl Tisch, Top Bill Thompson Supporter, Blasted For Calling Mayoral Primary For Bill de Blasio * GONZALEZ: Finally, Dems stand united for mayoral election
    the unraveling of Bill Thompson‘s mayoral campaign: “As the campaign began to fall apart, senior advisers openly puzzled over his approach on the stop-and-frisk tactic. It won the candidate endorsements from police unions, but it confused his message where it mattered most.” Those same police unions don’t seem overly thrilled with the man Mr. Thompson endorsed yesterday: Bill de Blasio. Detectives Endowment Association President Michael Palladino answered “no” when asked if Mr. de Blasio was “reasonable and realistic,” as he described Mr. Thompson.

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    Thompson Attacks the BOE

    Thompson Attacks the BOE - Cannot Count the All Votes

    Like the Broken Scanner and Long Lines of Voters in 2012, The BOE Will Get Away With Mayoral Incompetence in 2013 and the Fact They spent $95 Million On Scanner That Don't Work
    Thompson: It's a "disgrace" that the Board of Elections still does not have official results for the primary. Thompson: Return a progressive to City Hall. "Today I'm proud to stand next to a great New Yorker and offer my full support." Bill Thompson says it is time for a progressive to be mayor. He says all his supporters should back de Blasio.*  Thompson concedes, yielding to de Blasio but blaming election officials(Capital) * Bill Thompson blasted the New York City Board of Elections for the delay in counting votes before conceding to Bill de Blasio at a press conference where Gov. Andrew Cuomo featured prominently, City & State reports:  *Thompson Persists in Wanting Every Vote Counted (NBC) Bill Thompson said "the democratic process" should be followed
    1. The New Tale of Two Cities : Votes cast on broken lever voting machines count towards NYC mayoral primary, but not paper ballots.

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Organize Crime BOE
 
Disney Times Solutions
The Quinn and Squadron Loses Were Not A Wake Up Call to the NYT. . . Expect More Editorials Like Today's Fix BOE's Management That Have No Chance of Becoming Reality

The Times lays out some potential ways to fix New York City’s dysfunctional Board of Elections, includes calling on Cuomo and the Legislature to create an early voting system for the state 
Mismanaging the Vote in New York City(NYT Ed) The board’s problems go well beyond counting. The top officials are often political hacks, the poll workers are in many cases poorly trained and inept, and the ballots are needlessly complex. Fixing all this will not be easy since an amendment to the State Constitution would be required to create a professional board. That could be next to impossible since many politicians enjoy their power to fill so many jobs and would rather leave the mess as it is. The NYT Says These Are Possible Fixes
.First, if the board cannot be professionalized, the staff members can. At the very least, they should compete for jobs, pass tests, have some experience and undergo rigorous training. The City Council, which along with the mayor controls the board’s budget, also confirms the 10 members of the board, five Democrats and five Republicans nominated by borough party officials. The Council must make sure these people are up to the job — no more rubber stamping to please county politicians.* The NY Post says the city should cancel primary election runoffs.




More Rot in Albany(NYT Ed) A convoluted bribery plot over a spot on the New York City mayoral ballot exposes the worst in the state’s political culture.



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