BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | The polls will be open Thurs., Sept. 10, in the Village — but they wouldn’t be if local Democratic district leaders and political clubs had their way.
District Leaders Keen Berger and Arthur Schwartz — facing no primary-election opponents and having won the endorsement of the area’s political clubs — have already been re-elected in the 66th Assembly District, Part A. Because it’s a party position, there is no general election for district leader.
Gil Horowitz had briefly mounted a challenge to Schwartz, but quickly dropped out after the incumbent won the overwhelming endorsement of the Village Independent Democrats.
However, even though there is no district leader race in Part A, the polls will be open Sept. 10 for voters to weigh in on two slates of candidates for judicial delegates. Judicial delegates’ role is to choose the Democratic candidates for Manhattan Supreme Court in the November general election.
The 66th A.D., Part A, includes most of the Village.
Meanwhile, Part B — which includes Washington Square Village, 505 LaGuardia Place, Soho, Hudson Square, Tribeca and part of Battery Park City — does have a race for district leader, with incumbents John Scott and Jean Grillo being challenged by Dennis Gault and Terri Cude.
To get on the ballot, district leader candidates had to collect 500 valid petition signatures from registered Democrats living in the Assembly district. At the same time that political club members were collecting signatures for district leader candidates, they also collected them for judicial delegate candidates.
Traditionally, though, the ballot petition signatures are not valid unless a cover sheet is eventually provided by a set date. Ultimately, not wanting to force an election in Part A — again, where there is no district leader contest — Scott and Grillo did not provide a cover sheet for their petition signatures for judicial delegates in Part A. As a result, they presumed there would be no election.
Yet, due to a snafu in a Harlem race in the 70th A.D. where one side failed to provide cover sheets, the city’s Board of Elections has ruled that — at least for this election — cover sheets are not required, and so the polls will be open in the Village on Sept. 10.
“Harlem is having a war and Part B is having a war,” Berger said. “But Part A doesn’t want a war and John Scott and Jean Grillo tried not to have a war over the judicial delegates.”
Berger two weeks ago went down to argue to the Board of Elections commissioners why an election should not be held, but was rebuffed.
“I pleaded my case, and they did not budge,” she said. “They stuck with the letter of the law rather than the spirit of elections.”
The Part A primary election will see a slate of six regular candidates and five alternates on one side versus a slate of four regular candidates and no alternates on the other. The first slate is endorsed by V.I.D., Village Reform Democratic Club, Downtown Independent Democrats and Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, the other slate by Scott and Grillo’s club, Downtown Progressive Democrats.
“We’re not going to campaign,” she said, adding of the D.P.D. slate, “They don’t even want to win.”
In all, 16 poll sites in Part A will now be open, each manned by from five to 30 workers — or 250 temporary election day workers, in all — according to Berger. Two police officers will also be assigned to each poll, one working the morning shift, and another working the late-afternoon and evening shift. Then there are the workers who will need to bring in and set up the voting machines.
“There’s a lot of effort and money required to keep the polls open,” explained Berger, who tallied up the expenses. “This would waste an estimated $102,000 of city tax money that could be spent on eduction, police, libraries, Pier 40… . The list is very long.”
In fact, the original plan was to include candidates from D.P.D., Scott and Grillo’s club, on one unified slate with the other side, which, again, would have avoided an election.
“However, the politics around the district leader race in Part B caused everything to fall apart, thus leading D.P.D. to decide to run their own slate,” explained Nadine Hoffmann, president of V.I.D. “This controversy with the Board of Elections occurred when John and Jean decided not to run a slate, thereby avoiding a primary in the 66th, Part A.”
The six judicial delegates on the larger slate are Hoffmann and Jennifer Hoppe from V.I.D.; Schwartz and Maria Passannante-Derr from V.R.D.C.; Jenifer Rajkumar from D.I.D.; and Allen Roskoff from Jim Owles. The five alternate judicial delegate candidates are Zella Jones and Cormac Flynn from V.I.D.; Norma Ramirez from V.R.D.C.; and Jeanne Wilcke and Elliot Silber from D.I.D.
The other slate includes Grillo, Scott, Scott’s daughter and one other candidate.
Scott confirmed that he had assumed there would not be an election in Part A.
“The way I read the law is…in most cases, you don’t have a cover sheet, you don’t get on the ballot,” he said. However, he added of an election in Part A, “It’s going to happen. Keen went before the commissioners and they said it’s going to happen.”
Scott noted that a lawsuit has been filed in the Harlem election case and is now before Justice Lucy Billings in State Supreme Court, who can settle the matter. Billings lived in the Village when she ran for judge, he recalled.
“We supported her,” he said.
