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Not Even A Pandemic Can Stop the “Petty Political Games" Over Who Gets On The Ballot In NYC
By
Brigid Bergin
,
David Cruz
and
Sydney Pereira
Published Apr 22, 2020
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New York City Board of Elections
By
Brigid Bergin
,
David Cruz
and
Sydney Pereira
Published Apr 22, 2020
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For the first time in its history, the New York City Board of Elections is convening virtual hearings this week to determine state and local candidates for the June primary.
It's unlike business as usual, where challengers, candidates, and attorneys attend such hearings in person at the Board’s offices in Lower Manhattan, offering those facing the possibility of being knocked off the ballot the chance to make their case to the Board’s commissioners and legal staff.
While the remote hearing marks a change in venue made in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the process and the politics remain largely the same. Ballot access is one of the first challenges candidates face when running for office, and lots of little things that can get them disqualified. Failing to collect enough valid signatures, leaving a detail off a cover sheet, submitting paperwork past a strict deadline: these are all grounds for ballot exclusion.
Listen to reporter Brigid Bergin's radio story for WNYC:
Last month, as the state faced a growing number of coronavirus cases, Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order that lowered the number of signatures required by candidates to appear on the ballot, while also ending the petitioning process early. New Yorkers were being asked to “PAUSE” and stay at home, a mandate that applied even to those running for office. Still, the BOE offices across the five boroughs remained open, with reduced staff, so that candidates and campaigns could review their rivals' petitions, looking for ways to eliminate the competition.
In hearings on Tuesday, the first of three, candidates from Staten Island, the Bronx, and Manhattan faced the commissioners. Several of these candidates already have separate court hearings scheduled in the hopes that a judge can overrule the commissioners’ rulings.
On the Upper East Side, Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright was kicked off the Democratic and Working Family Parties lines for a paperwork error, and the New York Post reports she’s already seeking to run as an independent.
For Keith Wright, former assembly member and Manhattan’s Democratic Party leader, the “ship has basically sailed” for halting such challenges since filing deadlines have passed.
With primaries pushed to June 23rd, “maybe we close down the various borough offices for now, clean them out, disinfect them, and make sure that all personnel … have protective equipment, masks and gloves, and such,” Wright said in a phone interview with Gothamist/WNYC this month. “I would have closed it down [for two weeks], but of course hindsight is 20/20.”
“But these people are still going to work, so they have to be deemed heroes, as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “We clap for our healthcare workers at 7 o'clock every night—we should clap for our Board of Elections folks at 7:01.”
At least two people have died and more than a dozen people have been sickened at the Board’s offices during the pandemic. Several staffers were angry that they needed to remain open so that candidates and the general public could examine petitions.
Many of the Bronx races that were heard on Tuesday consisted of state and local races, including various contests in the 79th Assembly District and 87th Assembly Districts in the west Bronx where Hector Cruz, a delegate for the judicial convention, represented 20 candidates running for judicial delegate, state committee, and district leaders. Because Cruz filed past the state deadline to hand in petitions, all 20 candidates were taken off the ballot.
Bronx machine politics were certainly all over petition challenges, with party operatives John Zaccaro Jr., chief of staff to Councilman Rafael Salamanca Jr., and Angel Santana, executive director for the Bronx Democratic Party, challenging a slew of petitions. The party’s attorney, Stanley Schlein, represented the objectors virtually, managing to knock off challengers Shanequa Charles and Irene Estrada in the 78th and 80th Assembly District races respectively.
Meanwhile, there were no petition challenges in the high-profile 15th Congressional District race in the Bronx, where at least nine candidates are actively running. While candidate Jonathan Ortiz is taking the BOE to court over having his cover sheet invalidated, Councilman Ritchie Torres, another candidate in the race who’s raised the most campaign money, declined to challenge petitions.
“We have taken the position that challenging petitions in the midst of a pandemic is highly improper,” said Raymond Rodriguez, a spokesperson for Torres, said.
On Wednesday, Brooklyn candidates will be making their case. Among those facing elimination is Nick Rizzo, who has been elected since 2014 as the male Democratic district leader for the 50th Assembly District, which covers parts of north Brooklyn. After Rizzo filed his petitions for the unpaid party position last month, someone who did not want him running went through them line by line and filed specific objections.
BOE staff investigated and found he was short 19 of the 150 valid signatures he needed. What's odd in Rizzo's case: no one is running against him. The challenge could be chalked up to party infighting and bad blood.
“You know, normally you can kind of assume [challenges are] from your opposing campaign. I don't have an opposing campaign,” Rizzo told Gothamist/WNYC. He is expecting to be stricken from the ballot unless he’s successful in court.
Brooklyn's newly elected county party leader, Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte, distanced herself from all the challenges filed against candidates there, but still defended the petition process. “I don't know why a handful of people are trying to use, you know, the pandemic as an excuse to stop only one aspect of the election process, which is constitutional,” Bichotte told Gothamist/WNYC. She added, “the Board of Elections [employees] themselves say it is only a small part, it's not their biggest challenge.”
While ballot access is a challenge in any race, candidates running for the City Council seat representing Bed-Stuy, Brownsville, and East New York vacated by Rafael Espinal faced two obstacles. They needed to collect signatures to qualify for the special election and at the same time they needed to collect signatures for the primary ballot.
Originally, the special election was scheduled for April 28th, but Cuomo moved it when he delayed the presidential primary to June 23rd. Since this is a vacancy, the special election only fills the seat through November. Then the primary in June picks the candidate for the November general election and the person who wins that contest assumes the seat through the end of the Council term in 2021.
Several of the candidates who did not qualify for the Democratic primary held a virtual press conference Tuesday, where they alleged the Brooklyn County Democrats were playing politics and thwarting democracy.
“The Brooklyn County machine has decided to use this deadly health crisis as an opportunity to knock myself and all the other candidates besides their pick, Darma Diaz, off the ballot,” said Sandy Nurse, a local activist and New York Council candidate. While she’s among the candidates on the special election ballot, only Diaz has qualified for the primary.
Nurse was joined by rival candidates Misba Abdin and Kim Council, who are all arguing that they are being blocked from the ballot over a discrepancy in the number of signatures they thought were required for the primary, due to inconsistencies between the New York City Charter and state election law.
The New York City Charter requires a city candidate to collect 450 signatures, conflicting with state law that requires 900 signatures. When Cuomo’s executive order reduced the requirement to 30 percent of the normal threshold, Nurse and the others argued that the decision brought the total needed down to 135. The Board remains steadfast on its mandate of 270 minimum number of signatures. The candidates want Mayor Bill de Blasio to intervene by stating that the City Charter takes precedent. They are also hoping for Cuomo’s support.
Neither the mayor nor the governor’s office responded to a request for comment on the matter.
The Board ruled Wednesday that Nurse and Council would be off the primary ballot, arguing that the candidates actually needed 450 signatures in accordance with the City Charter. Board Counsel Steve Richman said the requirement was a “carve out” from state election and therefore the governor’s executive order reducing the signature requirement did not apply to this race. The candidates will be in court Thursday to challenge this ruling.
Susan Lerner, executive director of the good government group Common Cause New York, said the group has been “appalled at the petty politics of the petitioning process.”
“It’s anti-democratic and it shouldn’t exist at all. It should have been curtailed at this time of pandemic,” she said adding, “these sort of petty political games that are a bonanza for election lawyers absolutely should not be indulged in in this time of crisis.”
The story has been updated to reflect developments related to the petitions of Sandy Nurse and Kim Council.
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COVID-19
Politics
election
Brigid Bergin
Brigid Bergin is an award-winning senior reporter on the People and Power desk. She is fiercely committed to telling stories that help people engage and support democracy. In 2022, she hosted a live, ten-week call-in politics show ahead of the midterm elections called The People's Guide to Power. Brigid's reporting in 2017 included some of the first coverage of a political newcomer now known as AOC. In 2016, she broke the news of a voter purge in Brooklyn just days before New York’s presidential primary, triggering city, state and federal investigations. Brigid also guest hosts The Brian Lehrer Show and All Of It. She graduated from the University at Albany and the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-723-4719.
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David Cruz
David is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Sydney Pereira
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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