A new State Board of Election's effort to collect fines from delinquent campaigns has faltered before getting off the ground. The plan was to send letters to campaign treasurers and banks informing them that their accounts were frozen and would remain that way until fines had been repaid. But according to a report by the Albany Times Union a group of test cases was reduced to mailing only two letters to one campaign committee treasurer and their bank. A BOE representative said the effort was reduced because of discoveries they made in state law. Good government groups have long criticized the state BOE for failing to aggressilvely pursue delinquent campaigns. Replacing the current BOE enforcement system was the topic of a recent hearing of the state's corruption panel. 

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Lhota Uses Giuliani's Playbook in Attacks on de Blasio (Politicker)

Rabbi Linked to Kickback Scheme at Charity (NY Times)

City Air Cleanest in 50 Years (NY Times)

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Bloomberg Threatens to End Press Conferences (Daily News)

Three More Plead Guilty to Bribing Assemblyman (Politicker)

When Overwhelming Favorites Get Matching Funds (Capital)

NYC May Ban Social Media Demands By Employers (Crain's)

Squadron's Complaint Has Familiar Ring (Crain's)

A group supporting Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota is suing New York election officials in federal court to challenge a law that caps individual's donations to independent political groups to $150,000 annually. If successful, the suit brought by the political action committee known as New York Progress and Protection PAC, would open up the gates for other PACs to flood the mayoral race with outside cash. Lhota faces a hefty challenge from Democratic candidate Bill de Blasio who enjoys a 40-point lead in the polls and a six-to-one Democratic registration advantage. 

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Bloomberg Agency Combats Domestic Violence (Daily News)

The two remaining Democratic candidates for Public Advocate participated in a televised debate last night, one week before their runoff election. They were in attack mode most of the night. Both accused the other of being close to Mayor Bloomberg. Daniel Squadron hit Letitia James for failing to disclose rental income, saying she tried to hide the fact she was a landlord. She agreed to release her tax returns today. James accused Squadron of representing the wealthy and privileged. Turnout is expected to be miniscule.

Moreland Commission Looks Past Legislature For Answers: Moreland Commission members posed questions at hearing last night that pointed to the possibility that they were seeking for ways to clean up Albany without the help of the state Legislature, possibly through reforming the campaign financing system. By David Howard King. READ MORE

The Uniqueness of Dante de Blasio: The mixed race 16-year-old son of Democratic mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio was the breakout star of this year's elections. Does Dante de Blasio represent a growing demographic of biracial New Yorkers? Demographics columnist Andy Beveridge takes a look in his latest article. READ MORE 

Council Approves Protections For Pregnant Workers: "No woman should ever have to be forced to choose between the health of herself or her baby and her job," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in a statement about the passage of a bill that would extend new anti-discrimination protections to pregnant workers. By Chester Soria. READ MORE

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A Proposal To Collect Manhattan Trash By Pneumatic Tube (Capital)

SUNY is raising admission requirements for students entering its teacher training programs. They must now earn a 3.0 grade-point average in order to qualify and also pass an entry test for undergraduate and graduate programs. The chages standardize requirements for the 17 programs in the system as well. The requirements were recommended by the education panel assembled by Cuomo last year.

Squadron, James Face-Off At Final Public Advocate Debate: The two Democratic candidates for the office of public advocate — the job currently held by mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio — are scheduled to face-off tonight in a televised debate. READ MORE

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Billions In Taxpayer Dollars Decided Out Of Public View (Albany Times Union)

The state's telecommunications industry has spent over $12 million since 2005 in an effort to sway state lawmakers to pass favorable legislation, a good government reform group has charged in a new report calling on the state's anti-corruption commission to investigate "big telecom." Common Cause of New York says that Cablevision, Time Warner and Verizon have steered millions to campaign committees controlled by Democratic and Republican leaders. Common Cause has called on the state's Moreland Commission on Public Integrity, created by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to take up the matter. The commission meets tomorrow night in Albany. Note: The hearing location has been changed to meeting room 6 of the Empire State Plaza in Albany. More Info.

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GothamVotes: Campaign Trails Update

GOP mayoral candidate Joe Lhota has raised more money from business and finance sectors than rival Democratic candidate Bill de Blasio. (Newsday)

Despite his long resume, Lhota faces "long odds" in the race to be the next mayor. (The Associated Press)

De Blasio's name changes. (New York Daily News)

EDITORIAL: Maybe a de Blasio administration can redo the Willets Point plan. (New York Daily News)

EDITORIAL: End of ethnic politics in the race for mayor? Not so fast. (The New York Post)

For more updates on the elections, please visit GothamVotes 2013

NEW YORK — They all wanted the Latino vote.

During this year’s high-stakes scramble to win their primaries, Republican and Democratic mayoral candidates alike vied for a piece of the second-fastest growing voting bloc in the New York City.

They made campaign appearances in front of Spanish-language audiences, and were asked about their taste for fried Puerto Rican eats known as “cuchifritos” during the first televised mayoral debate on Latino issues. Mailboxes were teeming with bilingual mailers, and airwaves were flooded with targeted Spanish-language ads.

Candidates with the most clout racked up endorsements from leading Latino figures, deploying them as surrogates across the five boroughs.

And then there was the candidate who swept them away.

Bill de Blasio’s message of fairness and equality was just as powerful with Latinos as it was with almost every other demographic group in New York. The amount of time and money the campaigns spent on wooing the Latino vote didn’t wake the “sleeping giant” as the voting bloc is often referred to — and turnout among Hispanics remained low. Even so, de Blasio's vision for a post-Bloomberg era sealed the deal with most of those who did pull the levers.

Exit polling by Edison Research showed he earned 38 percent of the Latino vote. But Latinos only made up 18 percent of those polled. That’s a far cry from the 40 percent of the electorate that Latino leaders want to activate before the Nov. 5 general election.

THE MESSAGE

As committed as the candidates were to getting out the Latino vote — some more than others — the hundreds of thousands spent on bilingual advertising and scores of endorsements by Latino power brokers did little in the face of a message steeped in the idea of justice for all that some view to be divisive.

“Economic and social justice,” said Fernando Ferrer, the first and most recent Latino candidate to earn the Democratic nomination for mayor. “That’s what the message is about, and the two pillars of that were economic fairness and stop and frisk. It’s deep-rooted in principles that are deeply American.”

But while Ferrer had used a similar concept in his 2001 and 2005 bids for mayor to varying degrees of success, the message played out more effectively this year as the election largely became a referendum on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s tenure.

Ferrer said that the biggest difference between his use and de Blasio’s interpretation was that it was accepted as truth within the Democratic field this time around.

A Bill Thompson supporter and surrogate during the primary, Ferrer now backs de Blasio — joyfully so, he added. That tried and true nature of the “tale of two cities,” Ferrer said, was just as relevant on Sept. 10 as it was during his turn on the ballot.

“What it says to me is that income and social inequality didn’t just happen in the last two months,” he said. “In fact, it’s only gotten deeper and worse. Voters want a candidate who’s not an apologetic for those who want to deepen this chasm.”

A traditional and direct appeal to Latinos might not mean much when the general election opens up to what is expected to be more than 1.2 million voters. De Blasio’s primary win proved a focused, compelling message could win in a crowded field of competitors.

"What he had was something far more potent," Ferrer said of de Blasio. "And good for him."

Another candidate who hasn’t outlined any sort of strategy specific to the Latino vote is Republican Joe Lhota. While his former primary rival, supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis, counted on his “love factor with the minorities,” Lhota has avoided overt appeals to Latinos beyond the occasional parade.

His staunch defense of stop-and-frisk might dissuade some Latinos from voting for the former transit chief. But his fiscally conservative take on the city may appeal to small business owners and might secure some support within a community that can be as ideologically diverse as any demographic.

Any which way, it’ll be a climb for Lhota. The most recent Marist Poll had 74 percent of likely Latino voters behind de Blasio. Eleven percent back Lhota, who has attacked de Blasio’s messaging as “divisive” and “class warfare.”

The Lhota campaign did not respond to the Gazette’s requests for comment.

A GROWING CHORUS

Unlike many of his Democratic rivals, de Blasio didn’t line up the number of Latino surrogates that former comptroller Bill Thompson or even City Council Speaker Christine Quinn did. Bronx state Assemblyman Luis Sepulveda and Harlem City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito were early de Blasio supporters and remained the most prominent Latino endorsers through the end of de Blasio’s primary campaign.

Mark-Viverito said she wasn’t surprised with de Blasio’s ability to connect the campaign’s message with a wide swath of New York, Latinos included.

“That’s what appealed to me,” she said, affirming that the campaign’s strong digital and ground presence on top of its media presence helped reach a broader audience.

{pullquote}Just like a lot of the newspaper endorsements, those from Latino leaders just weren't all that important -- Angelo Falcon{/pullquote}

The domino effect of Latino endorsements began when Bronx state Sen. Gustavo Rivera announced his support for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in April and then joined her on multiple walking tours of the borough to meet voters.

After Quinn endorsed de Blasio in front of City Hall last week, Rivera affirmed his support for the Democratic mayoral nominee, and that a de Blasio administration would be an inclusive one.

“I believe that will happen,” he said. “Ultimately, we will have much more to say about what’s going on in this city than we do now.”

More of Quinn’s Latino supporters have also joined the newly unified Democratic party for de Blasio. Among them is the influential union that represents more than 120,000 building workers, 32BJ SEIU, and its president Hector Figueroa.

Last week, Figueroa committed to help turn out the vote for de Blasio on behalf of the heavily Latino union.

“He’ll have a seat at the table for Latinos,” Figueroa said. “But we should never take anything for granted. We have to earn it. His heart is there, and that’s something we need to reciprocate with our votes.”

Calling Quinn a sister in the progressive cause, 32BJ’s PAC spent at least $45,800 on her campaign to be mayor. Overall, the union's PAC reported spending more than $286,000 on electioneering that mentioned Quinn in some fashion.

PRIMARY PAYOFF?

The closer New York got to the September primary, the more reports were coming out that Quinn — whose early lead in polls collapsed and left her running third behind de Blasio and Thompson — was counting on help from many of the Latino Council members behind her and allies in state government.

But it wasn't enough, said Angelo Falcón of the National Institute for Latino Policy.

"Just like a lot of the newspaper endorsements, those from Latino leaders just weren't all that important," he said, adding that what he sees as a vacuum in Latino leadership within the Democratic party doesn't help.

Nor did it help that most major polling didn’t consistently track Latino voters. Still, DNAinfo.com reported the day before the primary that Quinn was counting on the Latino outreach to secure her a spot a runoff.

“We expect to do very well with Latino New Yorkers,” Quinn spokesman Michael Morey wrote to DNAinfo.com.

By the early morning of Sept. 11, return showed Quinn at third in the primary. Exit polling revealed she received 14 percent of the Latino vote.

Thompson fared better. Polling showed he received 27 percent, almost double Quinn's. Still, being almost 10 percentage points below de Blasio surprised some observers, especially considering Thompson's strong support within the Latino establishment, including a major nod from Spanish-language daily El Diario-La Prensa.

Besides Ferrer, Thompson had the support of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., House Rep. Jose E. Serrano and son state Sen. Jose M. Serrano (Bronx), and former House Rep. Herman Badillo and more.

At least three of Thompson's political supporters ran their own ground operation on election day, which yielded mixed results. Two of them, Brooklyn state Sen. Martin Malave Dilan and his son, Councilman Erik Martin Dilan, represent segments of Bushwick, Cypress Hills and parts of both East New York and Brownsville. By and large, the Dilans delivered their districts to Thompson.

Across the East River, however, Thompson supporter state Sen. Adriano Espaillat, worked through his own Northern Manhattan Democrats for Change political club to turn out the vote in his heavily Dominican Spanish-speaking district, which mostly covers Washington Heights and Inwood.

Supporting a mostly successful slate of candidates across the ballot, including fellow Thompson supporter Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, the vote in both neighborhoods was effectively split between de Blasio and Thompson.

The same can be said about most of the Bronx, where many of Thompson's supporters operated from and which is still seen as the geopolitical stronghold for Latino political leadership.

Even being a Latino Democratic candidate amounted to little. The conservative minister Erick Salgado eked out 15,530 votes or 2.4 percent of those cast in the primary.

“I believe he got more Russian votes than Orthodox votes or Spanish votes,” said Salgado-backer and Russian media impresario Gregory Davidzon to the New York Observer. “The Latino community really is a sleeping giant.”

WAKEUP CALL

The persistent question is if that giant will wake up in time for Nov. 5. If it does, Independence Party candidate Adolfo Carrión thinks he can turn some votes in his direction. He joined Salgado at a presser the day before the election in a last-ditch attempt to galvanize Latino turnout.

"We can be a driving force in electing the next mayor,” Carrión said in a statement at the time. Guaranteed a spot on the ballot, the former Bronx borough president has long argued that an active Latino voting bloc could swing the election.

Whether it swings it in his or even Lhota’s direction is too early to say. For now, de Blasio’s new allies want to at least keep Latinos on track to push the first Democrat into Gracie Mansion in two decades.

Last week, 32BJ’s Figueroa said it will be a challenge to make sure the momentum continues in spite of what he described as a sense of inevitability. Part of that push, he said, was to make sure the Latino electorate understood the importance of its vote and de Blasio as an agent of change for the community.

“He needs to work on his Spanish,” Figueroa said jokingly. “He’s trying hard, but we will make sure that he understands Latino voters in whatever language we speak.”

The Moreland Commission on Public Integrity has announced it will meet on Tuesday, Sept. 24, in meeting room 6 of the Empire State Plaza in Albany. The commission was set to meet at a park in a suburb of Albany for its second public hearing. The area is not exactly centrally located — except for the fact that the Albany Times Union's headquarters is a few feet away along with a strip-mall haven called Wolf Road. P.F Chang's anyone? 

The change in location may have something to do with the group's last public meeting. Held at Pace University on Tuesday, Sept. 17, the meeting didn't go particularly well from a public relations standpoint. Members of the public were turned away from the room that only sat 50 people. Even those who say they signed up to testify online were asked to leave. You can see some of our readers' complaints here. 

Here is more info on the hearing for those who might want to testify: 

Tuesday’s hearing will focus on campaign finance, outside income of state elected officials and political party housekeeping accounts.

The speakers include:

Brian Paul, Research and Policy Manager, Common Cause New York
Bill Mahoney, Research Coordinator, New York Public Interest Research Group
Karen Scharff, Executive Director, and Jessica Wisneski, Legislative Campaigns Director, Citizen Action of New York
Dick Dadey, Executive Director and Rachael Fauss, Research and Policy Manager, Citizen Union
… Persons wishing to present relevant testimony to the Commission or attend the hearing must submit their request online no later than 12:00pm on Monday, September 23, 2013. Testimony must relate to campaign finance, outside income of state elected officials or political party housekeeping accounts.

The Commission will strive to schedule as many participants as possible, but the 9:00pm hearing conclusion may require that those wishing to provide oral testimony provide written testimony only. All written testimony that is submitted will be included in the record of the proceedings.

Those choosing to provide oral testimony must:

Limit their oral testimony to three minutes.
Only testify on the topics related to campaign finance, outside income of state elected officials or political party housekeeping accounts.
Submit their written testimony related to the aforementioned topics to the Commission via its website no later than noon on Monday, September 23, 2013.
Signing up to testify will mean that speakers will comply with the three minute limitation, the subject matter scope and the submission deadline. Please note that the Commission may request that you speak at an approximate time or with an issue oriented panel.
Submission and registration is a two-step process. First, fully complete the online application and then submit a copy of prepared testimony the Moreland Commission at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by noon on Monday September 23, 2013.

Democratic mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio sent shockwaves through the taxi industry on Thursdaywhen he said he would fire taxi commissioner David Yassky if he is elected. "I want someone who will work with the drivers," de Blasio told WRRL during an interview. The taxi industry has gone through a number of major changes over the last few years. Yassky said he didn't expect to stay on after the end of the Bloomberg administration but The New York Taxi Worker's Alliance defended Yassky to The New York Times as being pro driver and Howard Wilson, a deputy mayor, took to Twitter to praise Yassky. 

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NEW IN THE GOTHAM GAZETTE

New Elections Chief Talks Primary Day And Beyond: If the New York City Board of Elections is the political community’s dartboard, Michael Ryan is the face taped over the bullseye. An exclusive interview with the new executive director of the BOE. By Chester Soria.

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{article Campaign Trail: De Blasio Drums Up Endorsements}{title} {text} {readmore}{/article}

NEW YORK — If the New York City Board of Elections is the political community’s dartboard, Michael Ryan is the face taped over the bullseye.

Ryan was named the board’s executive editor less than two months before the September primary. Not only did the board face an election day with hundreds of candidates on the ballot, but it had the added burden of convincing observers that it could pull off a tight primary and runoff using the thought-to-be-retired lever voting machines.

In his report to the board's commissioners a week after election day, Ryan — a former Democratic commissioner for Staten Island himself — admitted to some hiccups.

At least one Manhattan site did open late due to it not having the machines delivered on time, and Republican candidate Joe Lhota did have to vote using an emergency paper ballot due to some machines that Ryan described as being “a little cranky.” He criticized some use of social media to report supposed breakdowns and argued it undermined voter confidence.

The machine and emergency ballot count of just the Democratic primary, released yesterday by the board, showed that 8,415 emergency ballots were cast, 1.29 percent of the 653,755 total votes.

Ryan also revealed that a truck full of machines overturned as it delivered them to a site due to the driver trying to avoid a pothole in Manhattan. (The driver was fine, according to Board spokeswoman Valerie Vasquez, but at least 18 machines had to be replaced before being delivered.)

Otherwise, the board’s new director — it’s first in three years — stood behind the board and the work it was doing to certify the primary’s results. Yet the way by which the board verifies the vote, mostly dictated by state law as interpreted by the board’s attorneys, has revived some of the same criticisms typically levied at it.

Democratic mayoral runner-up Bill Thompson, for one, blamed the board’s counting process , (which he described as slow and “a disgrace”) for contributing to his decision to bow out of the race instead of waiting to see if he could wriggle into a runoff with Bill de Blasio. Ryan admitted that the decision to hold back the numbers until all the votes — both those by machine and by paper — have been counted has been meet with “angst and aggravation.”

“It’s been my decision,” Ryan said during the public meeting on Tuesday. “It’s the right decision.”

He repeated as much during an exclusive interview with the Gotham Gazette following the board’s weekly meeting. A small banner emblazoned with “FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION” hangs over his office in lower Manhattan. Ryan said he adopted the mantra during his law school days after watching the 1995 film Apollo 13, wherein a flat-topped Ed Harris shouts it to a room full of distressed subordinates. Ryan said the phrase is as relevant to him now as it was then.

GOTHAM GAZETTE: The Board of Elections has gone so long without a director, so why take a job that you know has giant bullseye on it?

MICHAEL RYAN: I think part of the reason why the agency has a giant bullseye on it is because of the political environment. But you can’t pay attention to what’s going on in the political environment around you. The primary focus has to be the service of the voters and to make sure not only that they have a positive experience but that their votes are counted meaningfully. We’ll let our critics say what they wish. My hope for this agency is that I lead it properly so that over time the criticism will diminish.

GG: That’s a tall order, right? It seems as long as the Board of Elections has existed, that criticism has been there with it.

RYAN: I’m certain that that’s correct, but most difficult things are worth doing.

GG: What’ll be the difference between a board with you at its head compared to the last three years?

RYAN: One of the big problems with the agency going without an executive director for as long as it did is you had a minimum of 35 man-hours a week factored out of the management structure. That put a tremendous amount of pressure on everybody, and that part of it is already a change.

{pullquote}We’ll let our critics say what they wish. My hope for this agency is that I lead it properly so that over time the criticism will diminish.{/pullquote}

I’m making it clear to the staff that works here — which I can, without being pretentious, call my staff — that this agency is going to speak with a unified voice. That unified voice will be my voice. You can’t pass the buck. And I won’t pass the buck. I will take responsibilities for all the decisions I make: the ones people praise whole-heartedly and the hopefully very few ones where people are scratching their heads and asking why did I do that.

GG: Right when you came on board, you were thrust into the decision to bring back the lever machines for the primary. What’s your sense on how that rollout went and how the board will evaluate their performance given their brief return?

RYAN: We’re going to do our full evaluation the way we always do. But if we don’t end up using the lever machines again, that evaluation will have limited applicability to what we do with the optical scanners. We’re going back to the optical scanners for the general, and we’re going to review everything we do with them. Then we’re coming up on a gubernatorial election cycle — we’re going to start this all over again. It doesn’t end for us.

Now, we’re going to take the vote tally on the runoff night October 1 the same way we did it for the primary. But for the general, we’re not going to be taking the vote tally that way, and we’re not going to be taking the tally in the general in a way that we’ve ever taken it before. We’re embarking on new procedures because there was a change in legislation.

GG: Meaning?

RYAN: Not to be dry as Melba toast, but the process isn’t the most exciting thing to talk about. At the end of the night in previous elections with the optical scanners, a paper report gets generated from the machine. It’s that long thing that had to be cut with scissors and all of that. We now have authorization to use the portable memory devices…

GG: Which were always there…

RYAN: Which were always there, and we always used them to verify but it wasn’t integrated into the processing of the vote totals. And we have to develop in short order protocols to make sure everybody understands how it’s going to work.

GG: So that process could not have been done in enough time for the primary?

RYAN: No, the issue was different. We have to literally build the ballot. We have people on staff who have to make the ballot so that the machine has to know what it's reading to accurately count the vote. It’s impossible to collect all of these electronic machines, build the ballot — because there’s no way to predict who’s going to be in the runoff — and then turn around those machines in a two, three week time frame. It’d just never work.

GG: If lever machines weren’t a challenge, then what was last week’s biggest problem? Twitter and social media?

RYAN: This immediacy of information unfortunately comes along with an inherent unreliability. And then if you get unreliable information on there and [it] has the ability to spread quickly, then it makes it seem like it’s more reliable because it’s coming from more than one source.

But what we were finding was that things that were being reported as widespread problems were not in fact widespread. We’re going to release numbers down the road on machine breakdowns, but we had very few incidents of total machine failures for the entire day.

And to be honest with you, I did not respond to one complaint nor have I heard one yet where somebody said, ‘I can’t believe I had to vote on emergency ballot.’

GG: You mention people always being happy to complain. Being that the board is sandwiched between state and local laws, how much do you think you can do to bring about reform?

RYAN: On the one hand, the answer is very simple. I’m a lawyer. You gotta follow the law. Whatever the law is, in whatever area, you have to follow it. Now, what happens moving forward and what happens in part reforming legislation is being able to inform the legislators where there are inefficiencies in government.

There is no magic or mystery. You do a cost analysis of how you’re doing things versus how that cost can be modified downwards if you did things in a different way. And whether you’re talking to the New York City Council or the New York State legislature or a mayor or a governor, everyone responds to the mantra, “I can save you money if ….”

You have to have a good line of communication with the legislators. And one of the things I intend on doing is we have to ratchet down — severely — the amount of interagency criticism that goes down in city government. So you’re not going to hear me out in public criticizing a representative from another agency. If we can show that we can work together, then the voting public will feel more inclined to participate in the process. It’s all the backbiting that goes on that undermines public confidence. Taxpayers — and I’m one of them — want people to stand up and take responsibility for what they have control over.

GG: How does that apply with all the speculation being made about the Department of Investigations looking into the board’s operations?

RYAN: The Department of Investigation exists for a reason. It is a necessary part of city government, and I do not view my interests and DOI’s interests as operating at cross purposes. I believe that they are on separate but parallel tracks. DOI is charged with the responsibility of making sure that corruption isn’t going on. I, as head of an agency, want the same exact thing. I don’t want any of my employees engaged in a scandal that’s going to come back and have blowback on me, because that’s not a good recipe for continued employment.

I feel, and I’ve communicated as much with the DOI commissioner, that we should be working together and we should have open lines of communication. And they should be in a position to effectively investigate any agency that receives funds from New York City. We’re one of them.

GG: How do you respond to charges that these corruption charges are based on an old patronage system that enables that sort of environment?

RYAN: Just because someone is leveling criticism at you doesn’t mean that it’s justified. But we also can’t be so dense in our approach as to think that some of the criticism isn’t justified. In terms of the larger structural issues, those are things I believe that in the course of time will be resolved one way or another. However they’re resolved, we’ll still be charged with the responsibility of making sure elections are run fairly and effectively. And I don’t think that’s going to change no matter what.

GG: And failure is not an option?

RYAN: Failure is not an option — that is true. Sometimes it’s the result, however, but it’s certainly not an option.

GG: On that note, how would you grade the board’s work on election day so far?

RYAN: For election day: solid B-plus. I wouldn’t be as pretentious to give us an A, but a solid B-plus, where I can pleasantly report that the staff here — despite public perception — takes its responsibility very seriously. And people have to know how hard they work.

I personally worked almost a 24-hour day on election day, and I wasn’t the one who worked the longest. There are people who worked longer than that, and had more tedious jobs than the one I had who didn’t have a half hour in the day in the car to throw their head back and catch a little rest. So I’m not complaining. And I respect them greatly for it.

The above transcript was edited and condensed for length.