The New York Times - USA (2020-10-26)

giving surged, and the day after

his hospitalization with the co-

ronavirus, when Democratic giv-

ing waned.

In those 65 days, Mr. Biden

built a financial advantage of

more than $300 million.

All told, the 2020 donation data

shows that 28 states donated

more to Mr. Trump, compared to

22 supporting Mr. Biden in the

last six months. But the national

map of donation data still appears

red because Democratic dollars

— like Democratic votes — are far

more concentrated in denser and

wealthier parts of the country.

The most lopsided state in Mr.

Biden’s favor is Massachusetts,

with more than five times as

much money, $55.7 million, going

to the Democrats than the Repub-

licans.

The most Republican-leaning

state for donations was Missis-

sippi, with nearly four times as

much money, $4.9 million, going

to Mr. Trump.

In terms of dollars, Mr. Trump’s

greatest edge came from Texas

(he netted $48.3 million more

there than Mr. Biden), while Mr.

Biden’s came from California

($167.3 million more than Mr.

Trump).

In fact, Mr. Biden’s entire finan-

cial edge can be accounted for

through just four states: Califor-

nia, New York, Massachusetts

and Washington.

And within those and other

blue states, Mr. Biden’s hauls are

particularly concentrated in big

cities and suburbs. One Upper

West Side ZIP code — 10024 — ac-

counted for more than $8 million

for Mr. Biden, and New York City

in total delivered $85.6 million for

him — more than he raised in ev-

ery state other than California.

One of the most closely divided

states in terms of cash given also

happens to be one of the most

heavily contested battlegrounds,

North Carolina, that could deter-

mine both the presidency and

control of the Senate. There, Mr.

Biden’s $18.9 million narrowly

edged out Mr. Trump’s $17.9 mil-

lion.

BY MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME

Estimated donations to each candidate since April 1

BY SHARE OF ADULTS WITH A COLLEGE DEGREE

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

$250,

$225,

$200,

$175,

$150,

$125,

$100,

$75,

$50,

$25,

$

+

Note: Total donation amounts are grouped based on the share of adults 25 or over with a
bachelor’s degree or higher in the ZIP code in which a donation was made.

Note: Total donation amounts are grouped based on the median income of the ZIP code in which a
donation was made.

SHARE

INCOME

DONATIONS $250$200 $150 $100 $50 $0 $50 $100 $150 $200 $
IN MILLIONS

DONATIONS$100 $50 $0 $50 $
IN MILLIONS

Sources: Federal Election Commission, U.S. Census Bureau

ELLA KOEZE AND GUILBERT GATES/

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Biden Trump

Biden Trump

LAZARO GAMIO AND GUILBERT GATES/THE NEW YORK TIMES

SEPTEMBER

Miami

Boston

N.Y.

D.C.

Dallas

Chicago

Denver

Minneapolis

L.A.

San Francisco

Seattle

Portland

Anna Greenberg, a Democratic
pollster, said the shift of more ed-
ucated voters toward her party
was a boost “in the short term,”
especially financially.
“To have people with more re-
sources to be able to give — and
not just once, but over and over
again in lots of different places —
it creates an advantage for Demo-
crats,” Ms. Greenberg said, citing
the online culture of donating to
multiple candidates that has
lifted once-obscure Senate Demo-
cratic candidates.
Of course, neither party wants
to be seen chiefly as the cham-
pion of the well-to-do. Mr. Biden
has emphasized his blue-collar
roots and upbringing in Scranton,
Pa. Mr. Trump, after falling be-
hind in the money chase, has at-
tacked Mr. Biden as beholden to
the donor class.
“Joe, you have raised a lot of
money, tremendous amounts of
money,” Mr. Trump said in last
week’s debate. “And every time
you raise money, deals are made,
Joe.”
Ms. Greenberg said there were
risks if her party fell out of touch
with the values of the working
class, both white and nonwhite.
“About 60 percent of this country
is still without a college degree,”
she noted.

A Pivotal Turning Point

For months, after Mr. Biden
had emerged as the presumptive
Democratic nominee, he and Mr.
Trump competed closely for do-
nations, despite the president’s
three-year head start.
But that all changed on Aug. 11,
when Mr. Biden named Ms. Har-
ris as his running mate.
That day, Mr. Biden raised five
times as much as Mr. Trump and
nearly repeated that margin the
day after. In the 65 days from the
formation of the Biden-Harris
team until Oct. 14, that Democrat-
ic team outraised Mr. Trump on
63 of them, according to the data.
The only two exceptions were
the night of Mr. Trump’s conven-
tion speech, when Republican

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALMONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2020 N A

Election

n’t have to hold our breath be-

cause of their gross incompe-

tence.”

New York is the only state in

the country with local election

boards whose staffers are chosen

almost entirely by Democratic

and Republican Party bosses, and

the board in New York City illus-

trates the pitfalls. In recent years,

the board has made increasingly

high-profile blunders, from mis-

takenly purging 200,000 people

from rolls ahead of the 2016 elec-

tion to forcing some voters to wait

in four-hour lines in 2018.

“It is really hard to have co-

workers who are incapable of per-

forming what they need to do,”

said Charles Stimson, a trainer

assistant who has worked at the

board on and off since 1992.

Mr. Stimson was one of more

than a dozen current and former

employees who told The Times

that the agency has a culture

where ineptitude is common and

accountability is rare. Some

staffers read or watch Netflix at

the office, the employees said.

Others regularly fail to show up

for work, with no fear of disci-

pline. Several employees said

some staffers punch in and then

leave to go shopping or to the

gym.

Under board rules, almost ev-

ery job must be duplicated, with a

Republican and Democrat each

performing the same function.

“The agency is chronically dys-

functional,” said Mr. Stimson, who

said he has complained internally

and to a city watchdog.

Betty Ann Canizio, a former

clerk who was pushed out after

the voter purge, said she caught

workers smoking marijuana at

the Brooklyn voting machine

warehouse on an election night.

She said she told two commission-

ers and the board’s executive di-

rector, none of whom took action.

As the June primary ap-

proached this year, the board —

despite assuring the state it could

handle a surge in residents seek-

ing to vote by mail — grew so

overwhelmed that it called two

upstate companies for help print-

ing absentee ballots on the week-

end before the election, officials

acknowledged.

It did not send the companies

the names of voters who still

needed ballots until late after-

noon that Sunday, less than two

days before the vote.

The companies worked

through the night. But in all,

34,000 ballot packages were not

mailed to voters until the day be-

fore the primary, and many likely

did not arrive in time to be re-

turned and counted. Ultimately,

about one-fifth of primary ballots

were thrown out for arriving late

or other defects; in other states,

the rate was 5 percent or less.

Last month, one of the printing

companies sent general election

packages to voters that had re-

turn envelopes with the wrong

names. The mistake, which the

company blamed on a mechanical

error, affected a print run of

100,000 packages, although the

company said fewer than 1,

voters received flawed packages.

Mr. Trump quickly seized on

the problem. “Big Fraud, Unfix-

able!” he tweeted on Sept. 30.

The Board of Elections blamed

the vendor, but others called it a

failure of oversight.

The ballots were already caus-

ing confusion because they were

labeled “absentee military,” miss-

ing the slash that would indicate

they could be used for either pur-

pose.

Valerie Vazquez-Diaz, a board

spokeswoman, acknowledged it

had not checked the work of the

vendor, Phoenix Graphics Inc. of

Rochester, N.Y., which had been

given a no-bid contract. Phoenix

said it had printed millions of bal-

lots without mistakes.

Ms. Vazquez-Diaz said the

board struggled in the primary

because under state law, it had to

honor requests for absentee bal-

lots postmarked a week before

the election.

She added that the board has

improved its processes since the

primary, including by creating a

system so voters can track their

ballots online.

“The work we have accom-

plished is unprecedented and was

performed under extraordinary

circumstances,” she said in a

statement. “Criticisms of boards

of elections are readily made

while the hard work and dedica-

tion of such boards are widely ig-

nored.”

The structure of the city Board

of Elections is enshrined in the

state Constitution, and it has its

defenders. Some believe that par-

tisan appointees watching each

other works better than concen-

trating control in one elected offi-

cial, as many states do.

Government watchdogs say

the board has a difficult mission

and has made improvements

over the years, such as digitizing

voter registration records that

had long been kept on millions of

notebook-bound cards. A spokes-

man for the state Board of Elec-

tions said every local agency has

struggled during the pandemic.

But the New York City board

has come under consistent criti-

cism for decades.

In 1940, a city investigation

found it was plagued by “illegal-

ity, inefficiency, laxity and waste.”

In 1971, a New York Times editori-

al derided it as “at best a semi-

functioning anachronism.” And in

1985, another city inquiry said it

had an “almost embarrassing

lack of understanding” of its job.

Mayor Bill de Blasio once of-

fered the agency $20 million to

hire a consultant and reform;

commissioners declined.

Still, state lawmakers have

never seriously pushed to amend

the state Constitution to create a

professional structure. And the

City Council has not used its

power over approving commis-

sioners to force change.

Elected officials are often quick

to criticize the board but deflect

responsibility. Representatives

for Mr. de Blasio and City Council

Speaker Corey Johnson noted the

state controls the board’s struc-

ture. On Sunday, Gov. Andrew M.

Cuomo, who has not lobbied state

lawmakers to reform the board,

said he believes the city should

take the lead and bring a proposal

to the state.

“They run it. They appoint the

people. They set the rules,” Mr.

Cuomo said.

Reform seemed inevitable after

the city Department of Investiga-

tion released a scathing report in

2013. Investigators found “illegal-
      ities, misconduct, and antiquated
      operations,” including that nearly
      10 percent of employees were re-
      lated to another staffer.
      Seven years later, little has
      changed, according to the current
      and former employees.
      A core group of the political ap-
      pointees are highly capable and
      keep the board running, but many
      others are unqualified, the em-

ployees said.

Frank Seddio, the former

Brooklyn Democratic chairman

who remains a district leader, ac-

knowledged some who land jobs

at the board have not had prior

permanent employment.

“It’s nice to know that we’ve

sometimes changed the lives of

people,” he said.

The county party chairs choose

the board’s 10 commissioners —

one Democrat and one Republi-

can from each borough — and

most other board employees. Tra-

dition dictates that when staffers

leave, they are replaced by some-

one from the same party and bor-

ough.

Employees include Beth Fos-

sella, the head of voter registra-

tion and mother of a former Re-

publican congressman from Stat-

en Island, Vito J. Fossella; Thom-

as Sattie, director of ballot

management and son of the for-

mer Brooklyn Democratic district

leader Maryrose Sattie; Pamela

Perkins, administrative manager

and wife of Democratic City Coun-

cilman Bill Perkins; Raphael Sav-

ino, deputy general counsel and

brother of Joseph Savino, the for-

mer Bronx Republican leader;

and Daniel Ortiz, deputy clerk in

Brooklyn and son of Assembly-

man Felix W. Ortiz, a Democrat.

The list of relatives stretches

even to the agency’s computer

programmers, including Rubén

Díaz III, a Democrat who is the

son of the Bronx borough presi-

dent and grandson of a City Coun-

cil member.

Others have different connec-

tions. Debra Leible, head of Elec-

tion Day operations, for example,

is a longtime friend of Andrea Cat-

simatidis, the head of the Manhat-

tan Republican Party.

“It’s like being in line at a con-

cert,” said Chicava Roslyn Tate,

who got hired through a former

City Council member and worked

at the board until the spring.

“People just get swept in.”

The employees did not respond

to requests for comment.

It is difficult to find skilled

workers, current and former em-

ployees said, because many jobs

involve tedious work and require

late hours. Employees are also

expected to attend fund-raising

dinners and carry petitions for

candidates favored by their par-

ties. At the same time, it is hard to

punish staffers, because commis-

sioners control the disciplinary

process and protect their own,

employees said.

Mike Ryan, the executive direc-

tor, was not disciplined by the

agency after NY1 reported that he

sat on the advisory board of a vot-

ing machine company that did

business with the city and paid for

his travel. (He was fined $2,

by the Conflicts of Interest

Board.) Jose Miguel Araujo, the

Democratic commissioner from

Queens, was reappointed in 2016

after he was fined $10,000 for giv-

ing his wife a job.

Problems at the board burst

into public view during the voter

purge in the 2016 Democratic

presidential primary between

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sand-

ers. Officials said they erred dur-

ing a routine effort to remove peo-

ple who had died or moved, but

they later acknowledged vio-

lating the law.

Ms. Canizio, one of two clerks

who were suspended for the

purge and ultimately left, said she

had no part in it and was scape-

goated.

“My job was actually like

babysitting,” said Ms. Canizio,

who got the job after working for a

member of the Assembly. “I felt

like I was working in an insane

asylum.”

In 2018, long lines followed the

breakdown of scores of scanning

machines. Mr. Ryan blamed the

rainy weather, an explanation

that drew ridicule.

The board’s recent miscues

have renewed calls for reform.

“Once we get through this elec-

tion, I think we will have to have a

very serious discussion,” said

State Senator Zellnor Myrie, a

Brooklyn Democrat who chairs

the Elections Committee.

Another state senator, Liz

Krueger of Manhattan, said her

own experience with the board 20

years ago makes her wary.

Ms. Krueger, a Democrat, nar-

rowly lost a 2000 State Senate

race to Roy Goodman, the incum-

bent and a Republican Party

leader with sway over the elec-

tions board. Months later, accord-

ing to three people familiar with

the incident, workers found hun-

dreds of ballots in a Board of Elec-

tions air conditioning duct. The

ballots were from a part of the dis-

trict that had favored Ms. Krue-

ger.

She said she learned of the bal-

lots just ahead of a special elec-

tion to replace Mr. Goodman. She

won, so she did not talk about the

incident publicly, and it has not

previously been reported. Mr.

Goodman died in 2014.

“Now in close races,” Ms. Krue-

ger said, “I personally call up

each side and say, ‘Check the ceil-

ing tiles every night.”

Dana Rubinstein, Jesse McKinley

and Luis Ferré-Sadurní contribut-

ed reporting. Kitty Bennett and Su-

san C. Beachy contributed re-

search.

Inside the Shaky Record of New York City’s Elections Board

From Page A

The 2020 presidential election is the city’s first with early voting.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KIRSTEN LUCE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Poll workers awaiting early voters in Queens on Saturday.

President Trump has been fomenting distrust in mail-in ballots.

Tens of thousands of residents flooded polling places Saturday. A

pandemic and the threat of foreign interference are challenges.

New York is the only

state where party

bosses choose election

board staffers.

.