Albany watchdog’s Board of Elex ties
The state lawmaker tasked with oversight of the city’s scandalplagued Board of Elections has at least four people close to her who are currently or were previously employed by the patronage-laden agency, The Post has learned.
Despite the connections, Assemblywoman Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn) chairs the body’s Election Law Committee and helmed its hearing this week examining the Big Apple’s ranked-choice voting system in the aftermath of the BOE botching the preliminary tallies from the Democratic mayoral primary.
“We’re all working very hard to reform the Board of Elections, and she’s very important in the Assembly to making that happen,” said former Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, who now heads the goodgovernment group Citizens Union.
“That’s not good,” she added. “It appears to be a conflict of interest.”
Records filed in Brooklyn Housing Court show that Walker shared a Herkimer Street address with Jonathan Anderson — while he was a BOE employee whom she tagged in a Facebook post with photos of her daughter. Anderson separately posted scores of pictures of the adorable child, who he identifies as his daughter.
“The most important thing in the universe is TIME,” he wrote in one December posting. “My baby is turning 9 (born) today. Let’s shower her with some love.”
Anderson started at the BOE in 2005, payroll records show. In recent years, he worked as a “temporary clerk,” making as much as $25,000 annually from the part-time gig.
According to his Facebook page and payroll records, Anderson recently moved to Georgia and no longer has the BOE gig. He hung up when a Post reporter called for comment.
Three other members of the Anderson family — all of whom share a MacDougal Street address — have also worked for the agency, records show.
Steven Anderson works for the BOE as a voting machine technician and made $60,600 last year. He was first hired in 2014, records show.
Dwayne Anderson — whom Walker described as her child’s uncle — also works there as a “temporary clerk,” making nearly $27,000 last year.
“Uncle Dwayne Anderson: Come . . . let’s do the ABC’s,” Walker wrote in a 2017 Twitter post that she said described the “funniest moment” of that weekend.
She wrote that her daughter responded: “‘ok…ABCDEFG…uncle Dwayne, I can read’ ! ”
And 70-year-old Edwin Anderson, who answered the door when The Post knocked, was first hired by the agency in 1999 and served as a clerk until he left in 2015. Since then, he has been brought back as a poll worker in the 2017, 2018 and 2019 elections, records show.
Edwin declined to identify himself when he answered the door Monday but confirmed he was a relative of Jonathan Anderson and Latrice Walker and that he works for the Board of Elections.
A young woman then interrupted, and Anderson reversed his story. The Post confirmed his identity through photographs, social-media postings and public records.
“They share a child, but there’s not a family by any measure,” said Walker’s spokesman, Hank Sheinkopf.
“She is not related to the other people involved,” he claimed. “They are Republicans. She would in no way assist Republicans.”
Neither Walker nor Sheinkopf would answer questions about the Facebook or Twitter postings that mention familial connections.
Under the state constitution, the BOE is run by appointees from the county Democratic and Republican parties. It’s a setup that has made the agency virtually immune to repeated calls for reform and turned the agency into a place where the friends, relatives and former staffers of politicians often find employment or side gigs.
A BOE spokeswoman declined to comment when asked about Walker and the Andersons.