Finger Pointing Over Election Day Preparedness
Thursday, October 30, 2008
New York, NY –
Mayor Bloomberg and the city's Board of Elections are blaming each other for what could turn out to be a very messy Election Day. WNYC's Arun Venugopal has more.
REPORTER: Mayor Bloomberg has never been a fan of the city's board of elections. But yesterday, when asked whether his office had resisted funding several thousand extra poll workers for next Tuesday, he could barely contain his annoyance, saying the board had never submitted a plan.
BLOOMBERG: We keep making suggestions, putting a sample ballot on the web. They won't do it. What about recruiting poll workers to have to have training - we require training, they don't pay any attention to it. What about poll workers from good government groups rather than political parties. You know, this is an outrage.
REPORTER: The Board of Elections says it most definitely submitted a plan and has been alerting the city to its election needs for months now. According to Neal Rosenstein of the New York Public Interest Research Group, the mayor is rightly frustrated with the Board's inefficiency and poorly-trained workers. But he says the mayor could've done plenty to prevent the long lines and massive confusion expected this election day. For WNYC, I'm Arun Venugopal.
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