Despite the Presidents constant complaints about the “Fake News” and biased media- especially the NY Times, I usually find it accurate and honest.
Until this morning when I saw this:
New York is the only state in the country with local election boards whose staffers are chosen almost entirely by Democratic and Republican Party bosses, and the board in New York City illustrates the pitfalls. In recent years, the board has made increasingly high-profile blunders, from mistakenly purging 200,000 people from rolls [1] ahead of the 2016 election to forcing some voters to wait in four-hour lines [2] in 2018.
“It is really hard to have co-workers who are incapable of performing what they need to do,” said Charles Stimson, a trainer assistant who has worked at the board on and off since 1992…..
Under board rules, almost every job must be duplicated, with a Republican and Democrat each performing the same function….
The structure of the city Board of Elections is enshrined in the state Constitution, and it has its defenders. Some believe that partisan appointees watching each other works better than concentrating control in one elected official, as many states do.
Source: Inside Decades of Nepotism and Bungling at the N.Y.C. Elections Board – The New York Times [3]
Ohio has the same dysfunctional system, where local party bosses fill the dungeon offices of the Board of Elections with partisan hacks [4]. We’ve had numerous failures at basic accountability in local BOE offices- as well as a bias for the party candidates when it comes to petition analysis and acceptance.
I sent a note to the NY Times for a correction- we’ll see what happens. But, only in Dayton Ohio can a party boss, Beverly King, secretary of the Montgomery County Democratic Party get a good paying job and keep it- after hiring her brother, a convicted rapist, to a job for which there was never a job posting [5]?
That no representation of the majority of voters- “undeclared”- exists in the BOE is further proof that the system is severely broken and needs fixed. It’s time to do away with the duopoly of D’s and R’s and bring open ranked choice/or instant run off balloting to the state- and put each BOE under the eye of an independently elected “Chief Ethics Officer” who also helps enforce sunshine law violations against other state agencies/elected offices.
See all the nitty gritty of the laws pertaining to Boards of Elections in Ohio here: http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3501 [6]
Noting that, as an independent, I cannot serve on the Board of Elections, be a poll worker, or vote in any primary unless I lie about my party affiliation. Systematic disengranchisement of around 33% of citizens.
Thomas, the number of Independents may be higher if you look at this pie chart on the county BOE site under “candidate tools.” https://lookup.boe.ohio.gov/vtrapp/montgomery/vtrreport.aspx
Look this has been covered before. EVERYONE in whole county building knows Steve (Hair club for men) Harsman is a total stooge to the inbred hillbilly politics of Dayton Ohio. Just picture a bald hillbilly having sex with his secretary in the county building! Dayton Ohio is so disgusting. I work for the county and eat in the break room of the county building run by very nice legally blind folks all the time and every day I hear horribly comments about the BOE and hillbilly Harsman. Everyone can see the problems and the BOE.