The Election Day scene on Tuesday was all too familiar to lots of New Yorkers. Just one example among many: Early morning, voters at a downtown Brooklyn polling site were told they would have to cast their votes on paper ballots because its voting machines were broken. “We’re going back to paper ballot? You’re kidding,” said one disbelieving voter at the site — who just happened to be Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota. Over the years, many New Yorkers have suffered problem-plagued elections, with broken machines, long lines, chaotic poll sites and inadequately trained polling inspectors who unintentionally disenfranchise voters.
Even though the city Board of Elections argues that it is not subject to mayoral control, the next mayor can do a lot more to turn around elections than cry out in disbelief and anger.
In fact, the city decides the agency’s annual budget and the City Council has the power to confirm Elections Board members, who are nominated by the Democratic and Republican county leader in each borough. Mayor Ed Koch used the power of the purse, for example, to get the board to move from heavy ledgers filled with voter registration forms to slim, computer-generated voter records.
Full Article: Elections fixes for the next mayor – NY Daily News.