Vote No, No, No, No, No

Election Day 2019 is a pretty minor affair in the city, with foregone-conclusion races for public advocate and for district attorney in three boroughs — plus a preposterous set of proposed changes to the City Charter. Voters should say “no” wherever they can.

The proposals are preposterous because they cram a dozen or two unrelated changes into just five questions. One or two of the ideas aren’t bad, but each package is absurd.

On Proposal 1, we’ve already said No. The shift to a ranked-choice voting system in city elections invites fresh disasters from the dysfunctional city Board of Elections.

Plus, this measure also would extend the time between a vacancy and a special election to 80 days, and realign the City Council’s redistricting process.

Proposal 2 is a clear No. This one would expand the Civilian Complaint Review Board from 13 members to 15 members, adding one appointee by the public advocate and a chairman tapped jointly by the mayor and City Council speaker.

And expand the agency’s personnel budget, and require the police commissioner to explain in writing a decision rejecting a CCRB discipline recommendation, and give the agency new powers to investigate cops’ truthfulness — as well as boosting the agency’s subpoena power.

Proposal 3 has some decent elements. It would boost the ban on lobbying by elected and other senior city officials from one year to two after leaving office.

And it aims to make the Conflict of Interest Board more independent by giving the mayor just three appointees, while the public advocate and comptroller get one each.

But it also boosts the city’s Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprise into a full-fledged mayoral office. It’s too much in one measure: Vote No. Proposal 4 is an easier No. It allows the city to create a new Rainy Day Fund, but doesn’t require it. Meanwhile, it sets minimum budgets for the public advocate and borough presidents and protects them from budget cuts. But these offices have no real reason to exist anymore — they’re just the remnants of jobs that mattered in the pre1980s City Charter. And there’s no reason to give them special protections.

Proposal 5 may be the clearest No. It amends the city’s notorious Uniform Land Use Review Procedure to make it even more drawn-out and cumbersome by giving more time and power to local community boards to review and, most likely, block rezoning and large real-estate projects.

As for the races for office: Our sentiments are with Staten Island City Councilman Joe Borelli’s bid for public advocate, and Joe Murray’s effort to become Queens DA, but these are essentially Republican protest candidacies in a mainly one-party town. The Bronx and Staten Island DAs are running uncontested, as are a slew of city judges.

All in all, this election suggests a crisis of city democracy: The two-party system has broken down, so that few general-election contests are real.

And the proposed reforms to the city’s constitution don’t touch that crisis, instead mainly looking to boost or slap various interests for undisclosed reasons.

It’s so bad, the rational voter is best off heeding Groucho Marx’s classic song from “Horse Feathers”: “Whatever it is, I’m against it.”