Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Frank Seddio

Frank Seddio

  • New York's Election Administration Accountability Vacuum - Part I: 'Bad Choices at Every Step'

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    NYC BOE Executive Director Michael Ryan (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    After each election cycle, New York elected officials, government insiders, and interested members of the press and public gather at City Hall and in other hearing rooms for a bit of political theater. The protagonist is the electorate, or the democratic process, itself; the one cast as villain is Michael Ryan, the executive director of the New York City Board of Elections, who is there to respond to questions about how voting went that year.

    “Mr. Ryan,

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  • In Brooklyn Democratic Party, Democracy is Healthier Than Some Would Have You Think

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    Frank Seddio & Senator Persaud (photo: Frank Seddio on Facebook)


    Democracy in action can be messy, but the election law as well as state and local party rules are clear when it comes to how governments and political parties carry out their business. And despite the cathartic and frantic attempts by the New Kings Democrats to claim that party “bosses” thwarted their attempts to take over the Brooklyn Democratic County

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  • In Keeping Stranglehold, Brooklyn Democratic Party Bosses Further Sow Seeds of Their Demise

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    Kings County Democratic Committee meeting (photo: James Boo, New Kings Democrats)


    This summer I collected signatures from neighbors to represent my election district, an area of a few blocks, as a member of the Kings County Democratic Committee (KCDC), the Brooklyn denomination of the New York State Democratic Party.

    I had signed up with the #RepYourBlock campaign, convened by New Kings Democrats (NKD), one-and-a-half years earlier for this purpose. I handed in my petitions in June and a few months later I received a postcard informing me of KCDC’s bi-annual rules

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