Musical Ballot Chairs
New York’s Working Families Party put survival over principle last week by finagling a way for Gov. Cuomo to replace Cynthia Nixon as its gubernatorial nominee.
The move gives the WFP its best chance of winning the 50,000 votes it needs to secure an automatic spot on ballots for the next four years, while at least trying to end its bitter feud with Cuomo.
Yet the whole process is a farce, especially since a large number of WFP voters actually prefer Nixon over Cuomo. And it’s a reminder of just how perverse the state’s election laws are.
By nominating Nixon for an Assembly seat, the WFP was able to scratch her name from its November ballot line and replace it with Cuomo’s. Its only other options: have Nixon leave the state, get convicted or die.
New York plainly needs some less ridiculous way to replace candidates who no longer want to run. Nixon, after all, doesn’t want that Assembly seat and won’t campaign for it. Then again, she also wouldn’t have campaigned for governor (since it would’ve helped Republican candidate Marc Molinaro) if the WFP had kept her as its nominee.
Yet the larger problem starts with party leaders choosing “conditional” candidates, knowing full well they may later change their minds. This game of musical chairs doesn’t just confuse voters; it
cheats them. If WFP members truly preferred Cuomo, they should’ve nominated him from the start.
Which is why Rep. Joe Crowley insisted on keeping his name on the WFP line after losing the Democratic primary to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Crowley said he wouldn’t commit “election fraud” by hav- ing his name removed.
Here’s the problem: New York allows fusion voting — i.e., candidates running on multiple party lines and combining their votes. Seven other states allow it, but New York pols exploit it the most, by far.
In 1947, lawmakers, looking to stop communists and socialists from running in their parties and siphoning votes, passed the Wilson Pakula Act. That forced wannabes to get the OK of party bosses to run on their lines if they weren’t enrolled in their parties, but it also created opportunities for political horse-trading — and worse.
Minor parties got more say over policy than they deserve based on their enrollment figures. The WFP, for instance, backed Cuomo in 2010 and 2014 in exchange for his support for its agenda. And who can forget Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Smith’s 2013 bid to bribe GOP leaders to let him run for mayor as a Republican?
Cuomo himself has called for a rollback of Wilson Pakula, but that wouldn’t go far enough: New York needs to end fusion voting altogether, as 43 other states have. Parties need to stand for something, and have pols who represent their values run in their name. If they can’t get enough support without Democratic or Republican cross-endorsements, why give them ballot lines?
Banning fusion voting would also end the political charade of moving candidates off a ballot line by nominating them for positions they don’t want or expect to get.
Let’s be frank: New York pols are dishonest enough; the state doesn’t need election laws that further embolden them.