Cuomo’s Perv Problem

Republicans are having a heyday with the prospect of sex offenders voting in schools, and Gov. Cuomo has only himself to blame.

Plainly, the gov and his minions didn’t think things through back in May when he issued his executive order to restore voting rights to tens of thousands of convicted felons. In particular, they plainly didn’t consider that many polling places are in schools — where the 24,000 sex offenders included in Cuomo’s blanket amnesty can’t legally go under most circumstances.

Team Cuomo is trying to kosher-ize things with Department of Corrections guidance that invokes one of those exceptions, namely being a “participant” in an activity at the school. But the DOC order still requires each perv to get permission from his parole officer as well as a school administrator.

Oh, and to show up only after 7 p.m. “and not remain in or loiter around the school grounds” after voting.

Oops: High schools often have kids doing sports practices and other extracurriculars all the way up to 9 p.m., when polls close.

Cuomo’s GOP opponent, Marc Molinaro, charges that the DOC’s rules still don’t comply with the law, and noted that offenders who trust the gov might actually wind up violating their parole agreements.

As Molinaro also notes, these issues could have been addressed if the gov had sought legislation on this front, but he instead “tried to govern by total fiat and made a total mess.”

Then again, if the risk of “a total mess” were enough to keep Cuomo from governing by fiat, his Buffalo Billion programs wouldn’t have led to corruption convictions for so many of his closest associates.