Board of Elections messed up with both Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo
While early voting for the next mayor doesn’t begin until October 25, New Yorkers voting by mail are already receiving their ballots and every single one of those ballots is flawed and every ballot used in early voting and on Election Day is flawed due to the bungling and stumbling of the city board of elections, hacked by partisan design.
Two issues emerge from examining the ballots. One of them is that Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani (Row A) is also listed as a Working Families Party candidate (Row D). It shouldn’t be. This place should be empty.
In April, PAM appointed party member, Fordham law professor Gowri Krishna, as mayor. She was just a placeholder, as the WFP waited to see who would win the June Democratic primary. After Mamdani won the Democratic primary, WFP nominated Krishna to serve as a judge on the State Supreme Court in Manhattan. She won’t win one of the four seats, unlike the four Democratic nominees, but it got her name removed from mayoralty and the PAM nominated Mamdani.
Since Mamdani is a registered Democrat, a provision of state election law called the Wilson Pakula authorization was necessary. So far, so good, but there are special Wilson Pakula rules for the three citywide positions of mayor, public and comptroller. These offices require approval from at least three of the party’s five precinct county committees.
This poses no problem for the other three permanent parties, the Democrats, Republicans and Conservatives. But the WFP does not have county committees in the city, let alone the three committees needed. They are therefore not authorized to transfer their voting rights to non-party members.
The Board of Elections said no one challenged Mamdani’s documents and so they let him pass. But this is a prima facie violation of state election law. The Commission should have rejected the certification because it was fatally flawed and could not be corrected. The same goes for outgoing public defender Jumaane Williams. He’s a Democrat and the WFP can’t give him a Wilson Pakula without the agreement of three county committees.
The other issue on the ballot is that Andrew Cuomo is Rank I in the Bronx, Staten Island and Manhattan (shown here) but he is Rank J in Brooklyn and Queens. Cuomo’s name is in the same geometric position on all ballots, but the label is stupidly different. People who believe in election conspiracies might be interested in this, but this is just standard BOE incompetence.
Former independent candidate Jim Walden (who dropped out and supported Cuomo) is in Rank J in the Bronx, Staten Island and Manhattan, while he is in Rank K in Brooklyn and Queens. And what’s even more confusing is that unknown independent candidate Joseph Hernandez is in Rank H in the Bronx and Staten Island, Rank G in Manhattan, and Rank I in Brooklyn and Queens.
Likewise, Marty Dolan and Ismael Malave Perez, who are running as public advocate/controller on their own independent line called the Unity Party, have three different labels. Democrats Williams for PA and Mark Levine for Comptroller are certain to win, but if someone wants to vote for Dolan or Malave, their list is on Row K in the Bronx, Staten Island and Manhattan, but on Row L in Queens and Row M in Brooklyn.
The multiple rows for Cuomo and others, according to the Council, are not an error, but are due to the stupid way they assign rows for independent candidates, which are determined on a first-come, first-served basis. This is a mistake. This should be done by drawing lots, as is the case for primaries. But regardless, it needs to be consistent so that a citywide candidate has the same label in all five boroughs. This should be obvious.
Mamdani or Cuomo will be elected mayor next month and the Council made mistakes with their names on the ballot. Well done. Why must we put up with such incompetence regarding our elections?
