It should come as no surprise to New York City residents who endured the chaos at local polling places last year that the mayoral contest this year could also be a nightmare. As before, the problem is the city's hopelessly dysfunctional Board of Elections, which says that it will not be able to manage a likely runoff vote in the time required by law. The State Legislature can fix the problem, but only if it moves quickly.
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Under the current electoral calendar, the primary is set for Sept. 10. There must be a runoff two weeks after that if no candidate receives more than 40 percent of the vote in citywide races. But the board has said it needs much more than two weeks to tally the primary results, retool the machines and print new ballots.
Though we would wish otherwise, we have little confidence that the board can and will rise to the occasion. The only real solution, at this point, is for state lawmakers to move the primary, preferably to June, which should give even this Board of Elections plenty of time to prepare for a September runoff.
This would require prompt legislative action — to give mayoral aspirants time to mobilize their campaigns. But agreement in Albany could be hard to come by. Republicans want the primary moved to August, if at all; the Democrats, fearing that many voters would be away in August and July, say it should be in June, if moved. The differences between the parties on this matter may go deeper than timing; whatever the reason, they do not seem much interested in helping the city out of a jam.
The city board has looked at other options, ranging from the unlikely to the fantastic. One is to print every possible runoff ballot before the primary is even held. Since a half-dozen people are running for mayor on the Democratic side and several more angling to be the Republican nominee, the mathematical permutations seem almost endless by one estimate. This could mean printing more than 400 million ballots for the runoff at a cost of 54 cents each. That's obviously absurd.
The best solution lies with lawmakers in Albany. They should show some sense and move city and state primary elections to the last Tuesday in June, with city runoffs in September.
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