With corruption and campaign finance excesses dominating the headlines, the mundane routines of election administration are likely to be overlooked. Yet for assuring fair well-run elections, the recently convened Moreland Act Commission's charge to redesign "the structure and composition of the state and county boards of elections" might be our best opportunity to achieve lasting, far-reaching reform.
Since 1894, the New York Constitution has required that our elections be administered by bipartisan boards made up of members of the two political parties that received the highest and next highest number of votes at the immediate preceding general election. For the 119 years since, that has always been the Republicans and the Democrats.
The state constitution further requires that appointment to these boards be made from nominations by "representatives of such parties."
Not surprisingly, and notwithstanding that one quarter of New York's registered voters are enrolled in neither party, the people chosen turn out to be exclusively Republicans and Democrats. In 10 of the 57 upstate counties, at least one election commissioner or deputy commissioner is the Democrat or Republican county party chairman or vice chairman.
New York's election law provides that state and county party committee leaders and members be chosen in primary elections. These elections are administered by the boards of election. So in 10 New York counties, some of the people running the elections may simultaneously be candidates in those elections. Not such a good thing for fairness in election administration.
Of course, the law requires that two-person boards of election act by majority vote, that is: unanimously. The 19th-century idea was that each party's representative on the board would prevent abuse by the other. But this does not take into account mutual back-scratching, with each commissioner working hand-in-hand with his or her colleague toward at least two ends: protecting the major party faction that each favors against intraparty insurgencies and assuring the shared interest of the major parties against the interests of New York's numerous minor parties.
Boards like this, almost always with an odd number of members to avoid deadlock, are used in the United States for regulatory or quasi-judicial functions, rarely for administration. About three quarters of American states use a single headed agency for the administration of elections.
Only New York constitutionally specifies the use of boards at the state and local levels.
Yet even in the wake of the 2000 presidential election and after the passage of the Help America Vote Act, New York's Task Force on Election Modernization kicked the can down the road.
"The ramifications and advisability of changing the current bipartisan system requires in-depth study and consideration that is beyond the mandate of this task force," it wrote.
There are far better models. The Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University, for example, advocates a nonpartisan state election commission and the post of independent chief state elections officer, acceptable to all parties but not representative of any one of them, to oversee and manage elections.
The Moreland Act Commission can't change the state constitution. But it has the mandate and the power to initiate, energize and mobilize opinion in support of a giant step toward fair elections in New York. It must champion a constitutional amendment to eliminate boards of election and assure that future New York elections are run in a professional, efficient and nonpartisan manner.
Gerald Benjamin is director of the Center for Research Regional Education and Outreach at the State University at New Paltz.