Marcus Cederqvist was barely settled into his new job as the executive director of the New York City Board of Elections before Mayor Michael Bloomberg began firing off criticisms about the selection process for the Board’s commissioners, and the city began to gear up for the Feb. 5 primary vote. But when all the votes were counted (or undercounted, according to some reports), Cederqvist, the former head of the Manhattan Republican Party, said he is ready for November’s general election, as well as the citywide elections of 2009. He discussed Bloomberg’s criticisms, the installation of new voting machines and the perception of his job as one of the city’s last patronage positions. What follows is an edited transcript.

City Hall: Coming from the New York Republican Party, you seem like a pretty partisan guy. What’s the transition like coming from that to a non-partisan environment at the Board of Elections?

MC: Well, my background isn’t quite that partisan. My last job was as the executive director of the New York Republican County Committee, but before that I was chief of staff for a city councilman, and that was a public service aspect of my background. I did that for six years. When I was at the county committee, just like all campaigns and party organizations, you’re kind of a customer of the Board of Elections in a sense. So I had worked with a lot of people on the board and I knew a lot of the people here and it was just a great professional opportunity to come here. There’s a lot going on now, obviously. They’re going to be changing the voting system, so there are a lot of challenges ahead.

CH: Who approached you about the job?

MC: John Ravitz was the first one who mentioned it. Again, he’s known me for years. I worked with him for a year when he was the chairman and he told me he was leaving, although I guess the news was already out there, and that it’s something that I should consider. I talked to a couple other people and kind of threw my hat in the ring.

CH: What was your reaction to the controversy surrounding the vote to approve you as executive director of the Board of Elections? There was some conflict between the party bosses in the Bronx and Brooklyn.

MC: That didn’t really revolve around me. That had to do with something else in the board that I’m not as familiar with. I mean, it was a unanimous vote for me; it was a little more non-controversial. All the delays in the board…it wasn’t really beneficial, honestly, because I came right before an election, right as they were choosing new voting systems: the BMD, ballot marking devices. It would have been nice if I could have come in a little earlier and get oriented a little better.

CH: There was also controversy about the ballot counts the night of the presidential primary. What is your take on all of that?

MC: Having been involved in elections before, I know that those are artificial results. I know the responsible thing is to wait for the certified results. I’ve been involved in some really close races, so we know how important it is to wait for the actual results. New York State has the most meticulous canvas procedure probably in the country. We have these unofficial results that come out on election night and there’s a procedure for that, and that’s actually in accordance with state election law, as is the whole canvas procedure. One thing is, people should have total confidence in the results because it is so meticulously scrutinized; it’s done in a very public way. I mean, the machines are locked up election night and sealed, and brought back to the voting machine facility and then they’re actually unsealed in a public process where representatives from the campaigns can be there; they can verify what the board is taking down. And at this point, when you’re doing a recount, these are the actual employees that are doing it instead of what are essentially volunteers on election night, when we have 31,000 poll workers and then those county sheets then go to the police and they’re entered into their mainframe systems, so there are a few layers where it is possible to have some degree of error. It’s generally fairly accurate. But also keep in mind, even if it was 100 percent accurate, you’re not including affidavit ballots or absentee ballots and those have to be counted and they have to be considered in the end results. So really, the certified results are the important part.

CH: Did it bother you at all that there was so much criticism from Bloomberg and others of the Board following the reports of undercounted ballots?

MC: It didn’t ruffle my feathers. I didn’t think it was particularly helpful, though. I don’t think there are many people that are more accessible than me in terms of calling me and finding out what’s going on, and no one did that beforehand.

CH: You did not get an advance call from City Hall?

MC: Yeah, no one with the exception of some of the reporters who speak to our office if they wanted to get a sense of what was going on. We would have been happy to share that with anyone if they had called us.

CH: Being new on the job, are there any changes or reforms you’d like to make to the Board of Elections?

MC: I wouldn’t say right away. The first thing is, keep in mind, I came in right before an election and that process was well underway already. And then it’s kind of responsible to see what the lay of the land is before you go and try to shake things up too much. I’m responsible for day-to-day operations, but obviously the ten commissioners run the agency and so any ideas that I might have, it’s incumbent upon me to sell them on it first.

CH: The mayor has also made comments about wanting to revise the city charter, saying he wants to change the way the commissioners of the Board of Elections are chosen. Do you think he is right?

MC: My understanding is that the way everything is set up is done in the State Constitution, so that would probably be a state action. The other thing, honestly, is that the mayor’s criticisms aren’t new. He’s been critical of the agency since the beginning. As a point of disclosure, I worked very hard on the mayor’s re-election campaign, so I do have a certain connection with him and his administration. Nonetheless, I disagree with some of the things he said. He says we’re a partisan agency. We’re not a partisan agency. We’re a bipartisan agency and there’s a system of checks and balances in this agency from the top all the way down to the very bottom. Everything that gets done gets signed off on a bipartisan basis and that’s to ensure…that’s the system of checks and balances we have in place. And I think the people who set it up that way were very prescient because that way, regardless of whatever party or parties are in control of City Hall, you have a very consistent structure here, so that people can have faith in the accuracy of the elections that are conducted here.

CH: So what are some of the changes that are going to be made in preparation for the election in November and the citywide elections next year?

MC: The commissioners a few weeks ago selected a new ballot marking device and there’s going to be one in every polling place in New York City. That allows people with all types of disabilities to be able to cast a ballot at their polling place, it helps mark the ballot for them and then, under federal ruling we also have to replace our entire voting system, you know; we have to replace the lever machines by September 2009.

CH: Some say that your job is one of the city’s last patronage jobs. Is that accurate?

MC: I’m not sure quite frankly that I’m the best person to answer that. In terms of the pay, I appreciate the compensation, but compared to other agency heads, it’s a lot lower. Now I’m not complaining. The money’s not the most important thing to me. It’s the challenge of the job and everything. The other thing is, the commissioners I don’t think would put people in here, including myself—especially myself because that’s what the question was—that couldn’t handle the job, because that would be deleterious to the whole agency and to what they’re trying to accomplish, which is conduct elections that the public has faith in. And so, no, I don’t buy that I was put here to serve the interest of some kind of party boss because frankly, that’s not really what I am anyway. They put me here because they had confidence I could do the job, period.

CH: What’s going to happen to the old voting machines when they’re replaced? Are they going to a museum? Or do you get to keep one to put in your living room as a souvenir?

MC: Me personally? No, my place is too small.