Organized Crime Politics

Monday, March 2, 2009

Organized Crime Politics
Episode Two: The Rigged Election System

by Gary Tilzer

Money, influence and the fate of democracy in New York."The scandal unfolding at the city Board of Elections over the long-overdue modernization of New York's ancient, breakdown-prone mechanical voting machines. . . It appears that critical decisions about how we tabulate votes - the very core of our democracy - are being influenced, and perhaps controlled, by lobbyists and political fixers more concerned about their power, perks and paychecks than the public good." - Lewis, Daily News

It's not only the voting machines that are undemocratic, it is the rigging of the entire voting system that this blog has been investigating and reporting on:

1. 100 Years Without Change: How Tammany Hall Still Controls the NYC Board of Elections "MESS" The BOE is closely guarded by the incumbent protection society, because it serves as a gatekeeper to deliberately make it very hard and costly for anyone independent of the insiders from winning party positions or elected office. Since Robert Wagner in the 1960s, New York City mayors have tried to reform the BOE, but they have been mostly rebuffed by its arrogant leadership. . . Mayor Bloomberg once said the structure of the BOE is a remnant of the days when Tammany Hall ruled New York. . . Mayor Giuliani, who took down the five organized crime families, was limited to bargaining before the 1998 presidential election that he would give the BOE $18 million in funding if they agreed to accelerate its schedule for counting paper ballots. . . Koch vowed to fight for a nonpartisan BOE with civil service employees after the machine-controlled BOE tried to steal away his 41-vote victory over the leader of Tammany’s machine Carmine De Sapio in 1963. He failed. - From True News *** A History of Corrupt at the NYC Board of Election


The Board is controlled by the City's Democrat and Republican county leaders, who pick the board's commissioners.

2. Tammany’s Ballot Control Again and Again GOP Leaders Use Ballot Access to Fight for Patronage and PowerIt is not only challengers to local offices who are held hostage, even billionaire mayors must contend with Tammany Hall’s control of New York's Ballot Box. . . What the GOP has over the mayor is ballot access in the name of a Wilson-Pakula law that requires Bloomberg who registered as an independent (not independent party) when he was running for president, to obtain the written permission of three of the City’s five Republican county leaders to run for re-election on the Republican ballot line. . . There are no elected Republican officials in Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens and only one in Brooklyn. This year the Republicans lost their only congressmember in the city when it was discovered he had two families. There is no GOP vote to deliver in the city. It is all about controlling the ballot line. - From True News

3. The Real Campaign is to Suppress Challengers Using the Courts and the CFB Rules to Win Elections. Every year in an annual ritual, scores of candidates, many running for the first time are denied a chance to compete in the electoral process or have their campaign efforts severely harmed by the obstacles of ballot access. New York’s election law is among the most stringent in the nation. It poisons the democratic process and is kept in place by incumbents and a political machine which gain advantage by those that it harms. - from True News

4. Appointments Strengthen Special Interests, Corrupt Politicians.

5. NY's Falling Voter Participation - The City's election results from a half-century ago look like misprints. 3.46 million out of the City's 3.53 million registered voters, a staggering 98%, cast ballots in the 1952 Presidential election. One year later, 93% of registered New Yorkers voted in the Mayoral election. Today, the bottom has fallen out for the City's electorate. Only 27% of the City's registered voters cast their ballots in the last mayoral election in 2005. 39% of registered voters took part in the Mayoral election of 1997.

6. Member Item Slush Fund Cover Up When a candidate for council was asked recently at a community meeting if she had been questioned about the investigation of the City Council member items slush fund scandal, she truthfully said no. Inspector Clouseau Investigates - From True News

7. Venezuela Dictator Allowed A Vote on Term Limits .. Not NYC.