Add to the list of things Miguel Martinez should be ashamed of: his duplicitous gathering of signatures to petition his way onto the ballot for re-election at the same time as he was negotiating with law enforcement officials about resigning his seat as part of a deal to avoid jail time. Whatever else positive or negative can be said about Guillermo Linares, what is certain is that none of the people—or most—who signed Martinez’s petitions did so with the expectation that they would be empowering a committee on vacancies to place someone else on the ballot.
Unfortunately, this is just the latest tale of the absurd that New Yorkers have been forced to live through courtesy of the current petitioning system consistently managing to inject a fair amount of cronyism and fundamental unfairness into what should be the most basic expression of democracy. Critics insist that the convoluted petitioning process is a surefire way to suppress the number of people who run in elections. But really, done right, the process should be one of the best ways to force candidates out of their closed events and meetings and onto the street to meet broad swaths of New Yorkers. The problem is not with the idea of petitioning itself. The problem is with the rules and regulations that have been built up around petitioning, to everyone’s detriment.
Serious review needs to be conducted, with the idea of making drastic changes. Even the ban on voters signing two petitions in the same race is worth examining. Some challenges are done with devious intentions, meant to propel underhanded political ends. True, there are regularly legitimate questions to be raised. But the greatest problem is with the Board of Elections’ officially blasé attitude to the paperwork received unless a complaint is raised. Everyone involved should be ashamed of a system that does not force the Board to check every signature on every ballot petition received—rudimentary computer programs would make this incredibly simple—and then automatically determine who has qualified for the ballot and who has not. There would not be much to argue about, except in cases where, perhaps, some handwriting was unclear.
What a difference that would be from the current system, in which some candidates drop off petitions that are incomplete, short of the number of valid signatures they need, or, in some cases, outright falsified (those people who have not seen the name of a cartoon character or two on petitions have not spent enough time looking at petitions). We all know what happens next: some candidate, usually for political gain (though insisting that the move is simply standing up for principle), finds a staffer or friend to stand in on a challenge to the signatures. The connections are very quickly raised, and no matter what happens, the candidate responsible for the challenging draws the ire of reform groups and all but forfeits the chances of getting endorsed by the New York Times. In other words, ulterior motive or not, a person who forces the Board of Elections to perform what should be a standard review risks severe political consequences. And no one can reasonably claim that this is how a proper system of government should operate.
Even past the high-minded rationale of getting candidates out to meet the people they represent, there is reason to keep some minimum threshold for getting on to the ballot. Running for office is not something to be taken lightly, and setting limited requirements to gauge the seriousness of whether a person is really presenting him- or herself to the voters as someone interested in serving them only makes sense. And after all, being an elected official usually requires work more complicated than gathering petition signatures. Making candidates prove they are able to put together enough support and organization to collect a few thousand valid names seems a fair hurdle to put in front of them.
This should be the last year and the last election cycle in which the current petitioning system stands. Led by those who will first be elected this year, the Council and mayor should set changing the petitioning laws as a top priority, taking it up at the very latest on the day after Election Day in November, for the sake of avoiding any confusion given all the races underway this year for which petitions have already been filed. Changing the law to allow themselves to run for third terms took the Council and mayor less than a month. Changing the law to make elections match up more clearly with democratic ideals should not take more than four.
Unfortunately, this is just the latest tale of the absurd that New Yorkers have been forced to live through courtesy of the current petitioning system consistently managing to inject a fair amount of cronyism and fundamental unfairness into what should be the most basic expression of democracy. Critics insist that the convoluted petitioning process is a surefire way to suppress the number of people who run in elections. But really, done right, the process should be one of the best ways to force candidates out of their closed events and meetings and onto the street to meet broad swaths of New Yorkers. The problem is not with the idea of petitioning itself. The problem is with the rules and regulations that have been built up around petitioning, to everyone’s detriment.
Serious review needs to be conducted, with the idea of making drastic changes. Even the ban on voters signing two petitions in the same race is worth examining. Some challenges are done with devious intentions, meant to propel underhanded political ends. True, there are regularly legitimate questions to be raised. But the greatest problem is with the Board of Elections’ officially blasé attitude to the paperwork received unless a complaint is raised. Everyone involved should be ashamed of a system that does not force the Board to check every signature on every ballot petition received—rudimentary computer programs would make this incredibly simple—and then automatically determine who has qualified for the ballot and who has not. There would not be much to argue about, except in cases where, perhaps, some handwriting was unclear. What a difference that would be from the current system, in which some candidates drop off petitions that are incomplete, short of the number of valid signatures they need, or, in some cases, outright falsified (those people who have not seen the name of a cartoon character or two on petitions have not spent enough time looking at petitions). We all know what happens next: some candidate, usually for political gain (though insisting that the move is simply standing up for principle), finds a staffer or friend to stand in on a challenge to the signatures. The connections are very quickly raised, and no matter what happens, the candidate responsible for the challenging draws the ire of reform groups and all but forfeits the chances of getting endorsed by the New York Times. In other words, ulterior motive or not, a person who forces the Board of Elections to perform what should be a standard review risks severe political consequences. And no one can reasonably claim that this is how a proper system of government should operate.
Even past the high-minded rationale of getting candidates out to meet the people they represent, there is reason to keep some minimum threshold for getting on to the ballot. Running for office is not something to be taken lightly, and setting limited requirements to gauge the seriousness of whether a person is really presenting him- or herself to the voters as someone interested in serving them only makes sense. And after all, being an elected official usually requires work more complicated than gathering petition signatures. Making candidates prove they are able to put together enough support and organization to collect a few thousand valid names seems a fair hurdle to put in front of them.
This should be the last year and the last election cycle in which the current petitioning system stands. Led by those who will first be elected this year, the Council and mayor should set changing the petitioning laws as a top priority, taking it up at the very latest on the day after Election Day in November, for the sake of avoiding any confusion given all the races underway this year for which petitions have already been filed. Changing the law to allow themselves to run for third terms took the Council and mayor less than a month. Changing the law to make elections match up more clearly with democratic ideals should not take more than four.
