NYC Public Advocate and City Council Redistricting Maps

New York City Public Advocate, Bill de Blasio, and 2013 Mayoral candidate is stepping into the City Council redistricting mess, proposing new regulations to get the process sunlit.

“We just witnessed a district being redrawn to pave the way for a serial sexual harasser to stay in elected office. That’s just wrong,” said de Blasio of the current uproar over the Districting Commission's new maps -- which for now, unless they get pulled back, drawn again and resubmitted, as Council Speaker Chris Quinn wants -- clear a possible way for Assemblyman Vito Lopez to get to City Hall.

De Blasio's legislation would require:

* Publicly documenting all phone conversations, in-person meetings and written communications from elected or party officials, and their staff or agents, to Districting Commission members and staff;

* Logging all communications to Commission members and Commission staff, including the date, participants in the discussion, and a one-sentence description of the subject matter and specific districts that were discussed;

* Publishing all logged communication and documentation on the New York City Districting Commission website.

De Blasio's proposal has the backing of Common Cause/New York Executive Director Susan Lerner, who said in a statement, “Redistricting is about assuring fair and competitive elections for the voters, not an easy path to victory for politicians. Unfortunately, the process is constantly being corrupted by self-serving interests which make a mockery of our democracy. The public deserves a full and open accounting of the facts which determine our political representation."

As mentioned earlier, the Commission -- which has been widely reported to have nudged the lines to help Lopez at the request of his ally, Councilman Erik Dilan -- says on first blush it appears it has the power to withdraw its proposal and submit a new one. However that impression may be fairly new.

The process to withdraw and redo the maps has not been worked out yet or been determined the Charter allows this type of action.

UPDATE

The city’s Districting Commission will meet this morning, 12/4/2012, to formally withdraw the new City Council maps it presented last month creating a new district seemingly tailored for a Vito Lopez candidacy. The meeting was called in response to Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s demand on Thursday that the body alter its proposed council lines so Lopez, now an assemblyman, stays in his current 37th District. The 15-member body will then vote on whether to hold another round of public hearings on the new lines it intends to draw. The council must ultimately approve the new district lines. It must then send the maps to the US Justice Department for a final green light.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Justice Department at the George Washington University Law School Symposium

Assistant Attorney General Perez spoke at the George Washington University Law School Symposium on Friday, November 16, 2012. He discussed the Civil Rights Division’s work to protect the fundamental civil right that is the lifeblood of our democracy: the right to vote.

Some of the changes addressed what we can do both to protect the right to vote, and to improve the voting process:

1. Ensure that every eligible person entering a social service office can register to vote.

2. It should be the government’s responsibility to automatically register citizens to vote, by compiling, from databases that already exist, a list of all eligible residents in each jurisdiction. Of course, these lists would be used solely to administer elections and would protect essential privacy rights.

3. Election officials should work together to establish a program of permanent, portable registration – so that voters who move can vote at their new polling place on Election Day. Until that happens, we should implement fail-safe procedures to correct voter-roll errors and omissions, by allowing every voter to cast a regular, non-provisional ballot on Election Day. Several states have already taken this step.

4. Same-day registration is a reform we should be considering seriously – it would both facilitate election administration and promote electoral participation. For the 2012 election, eight states plus the District of Columbia had same-day registration in place. (Two more states have recently enacted it and will implement it next year – California, and Connecticut.) And we know that it increases participation: in both the 2008 and 2010 general elections, each of the eight states with same-day registration had higher turnout of the voting-eligible population than the national average. In fact, for the 2008 presidential election, five of the six states with the highest turnout in the country were states with same-day registration. Preliminary turnout estimates for the 2012 election show that this pattern will likely continue.

5. Voter fraud is not acceptable. But we also need to reform deceptive election practices and dishonest efforts to prevent certain voters from casting their ballots. Over the years, we’ve seen all sorts of attempts to gain partisan advantage by keeping people away from the polls – from literacy tests and poll taxes, to misinformation campaigns telling people that Election Day has been moved, or that only one adult per household can cast a ballot. Senators Schumer and Cardin recently introduced legislation that would deter and punish such harmful practices. This bill has sparked and helped to advance a critically important dialogue across – and beyond – Capitol Hill.

6. Provisional ballots - In some states and elections, large segments of the electorate are required to cast a provisional ballot instead of a regular ballot on election day, for any of a number of reasons. The Justice Department will be considering whether we need to propose concrete solutions, such as national standards for counting provisional ballots for federal elections, to ensure that voters are not disenfranchised by moves close to an election, by appearing in the wrong polling place or precinct, or by poll worker errors.

7. It’s time to rethink our largely partisan system of state and local election administration. We risk leaving our election processes open to partisan mischief – or to the perception of such mischief. We should have a serious conversation about solutions to this risk, including developing an entirely professionalized and non-partisan system for administering our elections.

The Supreme Court agreed last week to hear a challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act this term, in the lawsuit filed by Shelby County, Alabama. The Justice Department is looking forward to demonstrating to the Court both that the statute is still constitutional and still has critically-important work to do. Section 5 is a linchpin of the Voting Rights Act, and is directed at specific areas where discrimination historically was deeply rooted. Under that important provision, certain “covered jurisdictions” are prevented from altering their voting practices until it can be determined that any proposed changes would have neither a discriminatory purpose nor effect. This process, known as “preclearance,” has been a powerful tool in combating discrimination for decades. And it has consistently enjoyed broad bipartisan support – including in its most recent re-authorization, when President Bush and an overwhelming and bipartisan Congressional majority came together in 2006 to renew the Act’s key provisions and extend it until 2031.

The reality is that – in jurisdictions across the country – both overt and subtle forms of discrimination remain all too common – and have not yet been relegated to the pages of history. In just the past few months we’ve seen numerous vivid examples of the continuing salience of the VRA.

Section 5 continues to play an important prophylactic role, encouraging non-discriminatory voting practices at the outset. In many of the Section 5 covered states, for example, the statewide redistricting process following the release of the decennial census data in this cycle began with a decision to identify the existing ability-to-elect districts, and to protect the ability of minority voters to elect their candidates of choice in those districts. And at the more local level, one county in Texas recently withdrew a preclearance submission involving polling place changes after DOJ requested more information on the reasons for the change. The County planned to move the polling place from a school to a private club. The school had been agreed upon in earlier litigation as a compromise polling place location within the county, while the club had been a historically segregated organization. In our request for more information, we explained that our investigation had identified concerns that the use of the proposed polling place could discourage minority voters from turning out to vote. The County withdrew the submission after that request. As Congress recognized in 2006, and as the D.C. Circuit recently agreed, these kinds of examples are further evidence that Section 5 promotes compliance by covered jurisdictions.

At the same time, the statute has very effectively been used to allow covered jurisdictions to “bail out” when they demonstrate a history of compliance. Our bailout work has increased dramatically since the Supreme Court’s decision in Northwest Austin. Since the current bailout provision became effective in 1984, bailout has been granted in 36 cases. Fully half of those bailouts have been granted since the Supreme Court’s decision in Northwest Austin. Several more cases are pending now, including a bailout lawsuit filed by the State of New Hampshire. The effectiveness of the bailout mechanism further demonstrates that Section 5 is proportionate to the harms it is aimed at eliminating. In short, Section 5 continues to be necessary, and our bailout work illustrates that it is not over-inclusive.

The Department of Justice will continue, whether through enforcement and litigation, or through legislation and policy measures to expand the democratic process to all eligible participants.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Top Two Open Primary Revolution Rocks California

Here's the statement from my friend, Jason Olson, the Director of IndependentVoice.Org, regarding the California results.

According to exit polling, California voters identifying themselves as independents were 29% of the electorate (up slightly from 28% in 2008), and for the first time outnumbered Republicans who represented 27% (down from 30% in 2008). Democrats made up 44% of voters (42% in 2008). These numbers reflect the latest state voter registration trends, with independents up over 3.8 million voters, and Republicans dropping to less than 30% of registered voters for the first time ever.

As a result of the new political landscape, nine incumbents were defeated on Election Day. Pete Stark (D), Dan Lungren (R), Michael Allen (D), Howard Berman (D), and Mary Bono Mack (R) are just some of the big name incumbents who will be looking for a new job in January. Interestingly enough, the five Democratic incumbents who were defeated lost to another Democrat in a same party race.

Congratulations to Democratic Assembly Candidate Marc Levine, who IndependentVoice.Org endorsed as part of a post-partisan candidate slate. Levine defeated Michael Allen, a heavily partisan Democrat backed by the Sacramento party establishment. While Allen was busy filling mailboxes with partisan attack pieces branding Levine "not a true Democrat", Levine was pushing a message of taking on special interests and reaching out to all voters.

That was the message IndependentVoice.Org volunteers communicated in hundreds of person-to-person phone calls to independent voters in the district. In the end, Levine's non-partisan reformer message was able to overcome over $1 million in negative partisan advertising against him as he edged out a 1% win. The campaign will no doubt be studied and become the blueprint for how to win in California's new non-partisan political environment.

I also want to congratulate the three other candidates IndependentVoice.Org endorsed: Abel Maldonado (R), Bill Bloomfield (NPP), and Chad Walsh (NPP). Each of them is a champion of reform who reached out to independent voters and supports the reforms necessary to move California and America forward. Despite their losses, Walsh and Bloomfield performed the best of all the independent candidates in the state garnering 38% and 47% of the vote, respectively. What's clear is that much more has to be done to organize independents as a force before independent candidates can win against the well developed major party machinery. We look forward to continuing to work with each of them to move the state beyond partisanship.

I want to thank all of our volunteers and activists around California. Many of you participated in our process to have independent voters directly impact California elections as a third force pushing a reform agenda. Thanks to your support of our work, we established that independents could function as a force for change outside the constraints of a political party. This is a process we hope to expand across California ahead of the 2014 Gubernatorial Elections (which will look a lot like the 2003 Recall Election).

Looking ahead to 2014, if independents are to continue to play an expanding role as a third force, we've got a lot of work to do. After all, there are now over 3.8 million independents in the state. While huge in number, our organized force is still tiny in comparison. It will be our job over the coming period to amass the partners and resources necessary to organize that voting block and unleash their true power.

One other noteworthy happening for California is the now irrelevancy of the State Republican Party. For the first time in over 80 years, the Democratic Party now controls the two thirds in the State Legislature required to approve a budget or raise taxes without Republican support. (Ironically, Democrats can trace their new super majority in the State Legislature to the Top Two Open Primary and Redistricting Reform - political reforms the party leadership vehemently opposed).

California State Republicans have largely rejected the path of reformer outreach to independents blazed by Maldonado and former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Instead they have pursued a policy of hyper-partisanship that has made their party toxic in the eyes of voters. This is perhaps most evident in Maldonado's loss because frankly, if an ideological moderate Latino, proven reformer who campaigned on taking on partisanship can't win as a Republican in a moderate district like the 24th Congressional, then nobody can. That should scare Republicans.

Finally, I offer a new warning to partisans everywhere across California. The voters - particularly independents - now have the tools to take on those forces that put their party ahead of their state or their country. We successfully tested that in 2012. In 2014, we're coming for you.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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NYS Senate Independent Democratic Caucus

I always said the long-running one-party domination of New York's legislative chambers isn't a good system, and allowing each minority party a voice would make for better government. Could the key to empowering both caucuses in the Senate be, a third caucus?

Last session, the 33-seat Republican majority could pretty much do as it wished. Now, if the current election tallies for two Senate seats, one of them very close, hold up, the Republicans will only control 31. The Democrats would have control of the chamber and it's first power in Albany.

The Democrats thought they had one more seat, but newly elected Simcha Felder, who ran on the Democratic line in Brooklyn, announced Tuesday he had been wooed over to the Republicans. Felder has been unabashed in saying he'll support anyone who will give him the most goodies for his district, and it looks as if Republicans made the best offer.

But four Democrats who formed the Independent Democratic Conference last year are still romancing both parties, and jockeying for position and power. They will, quite likely, be the bloc that decides which party will be in power in the Senate and who will grasp the majority leader's gavel.

The last time something like this happened was in 2008, when four breakaway Democrats called "The Amigos" cajoled Democratic leader Malcolm Smith into ceding them positions in exchange for their support. The session devolved into a nightmare as those four (three of whom have since been convicted of crimes) continued to broker their votes cynically and poison the process.

But a breakaway caucus run for the benefit of the people, rather than that of its members, could have a positive role in Albany. It could force the Senate leader to allow legislation from both parties to reach the floor, a novel concept in this legislature. It could vote based on the merits of bills, rather than the orders of leaders. And it could loosen up some of the traditional upstate-downstate, city-suburb and even Democrat-Republican grudge matches that have often stood in the way of progress.

This foursome is led by Jeffrey Klein of the Bronx and Westchester. He is joined by David Carlucci of Rockland County, Diane Savino of Staten Island, and David Valesky of Syracuse. Political insiders say that while all four, and especially Klein, are ambitious, none exhibit the greedy tactics of the Amigos.

There is much to be done in Albany: campaign finance reform, further strengthening the ethics reform that was recently enacted, paring back pointless and unaffordable mandates on municipalities and school districts, and creating a better business climate to enhance job creation and entrepreneurship.

If the members of the Independent Democratic Caucus wield power to achieve these goals, seeking progress for the state rather than perks for themselves, the results could be quite positive.

Maybe this could be a framework for my concept of removing the two-party Congress's majority to create coalitions for the peoples' benefit not the parties.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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NY, Niagara County’s Election Results Were Late After New Process

A new election night reporting system was put into effect by the Niagara County Board of Elections on Tuesday, along with a new website design.

It was supposed to provide faster and more accurate returns, but instead, the new system produced the slowest returns seen in the county since its election system entered the computer age 25 years ago.

Niagara County, normally one of the fastest-reporting counties in the region, posted no returns at all until almost 11 p.m. Tuesday, and the board count wasn’t completed until nearly 1 a.m., irking candidates and the media alike.

There were tests before the general election, and all went well But under real-world election night conditions, the system crashed.

The new process was to begin with one of the election inspectors at the site removing the memory card from the ballot scanner after the polls closed. The card was to be placed in a leather envelope and taken by the inspector to the town or city hall to be given to the municipal clerk.

The county had installed a memory card reader at each clerk’s office and programmed an existing town or city computer to support their ballot format. The clerk was to insert a memory card into the reader and watch for a green bar on the screen that showed the card had been read.

The electronic transmission was to go to a private county website via FTP, or file transfer protocol. A Board of Elections worker, using a “verify and publish” function, would confirm that the transmission had been received and click to post the number on the public website.

This process of getting to the clerks worked fine. But the clerks found that they couldn’t get the private website to accept the card readers’ output.

Testing was done one municipality at a time. On Election Night, with 12 towns and three cities trying to transmit results simultaneously, the website crashed. The FTP site was not set up to handle the simultaneous transmissions volume.

The time needed to put a backup plan into operation and have each town or city drive the memory cards to a central election office caused further delay, meaning that at a time when Niagara County returns were usually complete, they were just starting to appear online. The new website did not contain settings for precinct-by-precinct results.

In another unusual election situation, dozens of people jammed the counter area at the Board of Elections late in the afternoon of Election Day. State Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Kloch Sr. issued 80 court orders allowing voters not on the registration polls to cast ballots. The voters had been dropped from the rolls because they hadn’t voted recently or had moved without re-registering. Niagara County Judge Matthew J. Murphy III and Family Court Judge John F. Batt issued about 30 similar orders in the week before the election. But a court order means the voter can vote on the machine, no questions asked. However, voters had to drive to the central location and appear at the election office to obtain the judge’s order, then drive back to their polling place and vote on the machine.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Occupy Wall Street Working to Erase your Debt

If Occupy Wall Street has its way, your next bill from debt collectors might have a zero balance. Occupy is trying to quietly buy up "distressed debts" from lenders at rock-bottom prices, and then forgive them.

Yes it’s legal (they’re coordinating with the IRS) and works: "As a trial run, they spent $466 and successfully bought and abolished $14,000 of medical debt," Occupy said in a statement.

A "Rolling Jubilee" telethon will be held next week to raise $50,000, which could erase $1 million in personal debt. "This is a simple, powerful way to help folks in need, to free them from heavy debt loads so they can focus on being productive, happy and healthy," organizer David Rees said.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Supreme Court to Review Minority Voting Rights Law

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to review a legal challenge to the Voting Rights Act, a landmark law adopted in 1965 to protect African-American voters who had faced decades of discrimination at the polls.

The high court accepted an appeal brought by Shelby County, Alabama, challenging a core provision of the act that requires nine states and several local governments with a history of bias to get federal permission, Section 5, to change their election procedures.

I have been looking at this issue for awhile. I think we should expand Section 5 to ALL the states. This would require any state's change to their voting process to first be pre-approved before implementation.

This would then reduce the many court cases, that would have to initiated by the voter and good government groups, if Section 5 is struck down, that works their way to the court system generating lawyer's revenue and voter's pain in the pocket.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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NY City Leaders and Watchdogs Call for a Election System Overhaul

A day after New York City voters encountered waits lasting hours and chaos at many poll sites, elected officials and government watchdog groups agreed that the city’s election process needed major change. But there was little consensus about what to do or how it could be done.

The State Constitution sets the parameters for how all elections in the state are managed, requiring that Republicans and Democrats be equally represented at all levels of election administration. In New York City, the 10 Board of Elections members are recommended by the Democratic and Republican Party committees in each of the five boroughs and then confirmed by the City Council. The parties also play a central role in installing people in staff positions. The board currently has no executive director in part because the county leaders have not been able to agree on a candidate.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a frequent critic of the board, called for eliminating the patronage system by which the commissioners are appointed.

Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a watchdog group, said New York should move to a nonpartisan system.

Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh of Manhattan has sponsored a Constitutional amendment that would allow the Legislature to set qualifications, like experience in administering elections, for members and for essential employees of the elections boards in the state.

The speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, said Wednesday that the state should “seriously examine” allowing early voting to relieve the problem of the long lines on Election Day.

The New York City public advocate, Bill de Blasio, and the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer also endorsed early voting, as well as legislation allowing same-day registration.

In the meantime, the City Council plans to hold a hearing on Dec. 5 to examine the problems that occurred on Election Day, which, in addition to long lines, included jammed or broken ballot scanners, and poll sites that ran out of affidavit ballots for voters displaced by Hurricane Sandy.

Gale Brewer, a city councilwoman from the Upper West Side and the chairwoman of the government operations committee, said people were “definitely disenfranchised” as a result of the long waits at polls Tuesday. She said the chaos had made her worry about how things would go in next year’s local elections, in which New Yorkers would be electing not only a new mayor, but also other citywide officials and many new members of the Council.

We all hope this will be the start of a serious discussion to bring our voting process into the 21st Century and open to all voters.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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My NYC Voting Experience

First some history. Due to redistricting, our polling place was moved from the UN International School, 2 1/2 blocks from us to across the street at the Holy Family Church in the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.

My wife and I arrived at 10:30am and the problems started. The entrance to the polling place was one staircase with very deep down steps and a line waiting to start the long journey down. One side was lined with voters and the other with an automated lift that broke often after a down trip which took awhile to fix.

Finally made it into the polling place entrance and saw three tables for voting districts 16, mine, 17 and 21. The biggest line was 16. As the line moves I observe it has split into two lines and it has two sign-in books with no signs or directions where to go. As I get closer and hear the complaining, I realize the two books are split by the first letter of your last name and I am on the wrong line and have to get on the end of the other line.

Now here is where I really get mad. The Supervisor, a member of the church, is moving church members to the front of the line. Talk about church and state issues. After many complaints, she yells "Move to another state like Ohio."

Finally got my optical scanned ballot. Besides Federal and State elections there are Judge elections. Only thing, there is only one candidate for each position and they are all from the same party. An example of what happens when all voters can not take part in the primaries and one party is dominate in a state.

Finally voted at 12:30am and was the 322nd voter on the optical scanner counter.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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NY Temporary Suspension of the Election Law

From New York Governor's Executive Order: ANDREW M. CUOMO, Governor of the State of New York, by virtue of the authority vested in me by Section 29-a of Article 2-B of the Executive Law to temporarily suspend and otherwise alter or modify specific provisions of any statute, local law, ordinance, orders, rules or regulations, or parts thereof, of any agency during a State disaster emergency, if compliance with such provisions would prevent, hinder or delay action necessary to cope with the disaster, hereby temporarily suspend and otherwise alter or modify, for the period from the date of this Executive Order until further notice, the following:

Section 8-302 of the Election Law is temporarily suspended and otherwise altered and modified so that a voter seeking to vote by affidavit ballot need not affirm that such voter is duly registered in the election district in which such voter seeks to cast an affidavit ballot if such voter is registered to vote within one of the federally declared counties or New York City.

Section 9-209 of the Election Law is temporarily suspended and otherwise modified so that every board of elections in the State shall transmit the affidavit or provisional ballot of any voter who resides in one of the federally declared counties to the board of elections wherein such voter is registered to vote to be canvassed with other affidavit and absentee ballots for the election district wherein the voter resides.

Sub-paragraph (iii) of Paragraph (a) of Subdivision 2 of Section 9-209 of the Election Law is temporarily suspended and otherwise altered and modified so that the board of elections for the county in which such voter resides shall cast and canvass such ballot, if it determines that such voter was entitled to vote regardless of the fact that the voter may have appeared in the incorrect polling place, provided that such vote shall not be cast and canvassed for such contests for which the person was not entitled to vote at such election.

FURTHER, the State Board of Elections shall promptly instruct county boards of elections on the proper implementation of this Executive Order including requiring such boards:

1.to instruct poll workers to provide affidavit ballots and guidance to voters; and

2.to provide notice and guidance to voters in accordance with this Executive Order:

(a) that indicates that voters who reside in the counties of Nassau, Rockland, Suffolk, or Westchester, or in New York City may receive and complete an affidavit ballot at any polling place in New York State; and (b) that the voter’s vote will count for the office of President and United States Senator and it will also count for any other candidate for office and district as well as any ballot initiative that appears on the official ballot in the voter’s home district.

The voter should be able to write-in the name and number (CD, SD,and AD) of the candidate for their Congressional District, State House, and State Senate. If not, this then should be a court case.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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