Despite Botched Primary, NYC Board of Elections Thinks It's Doing a Great Job

Mayor Bloomberg isn't buying it.

Following New York's June 26 Congressional primary, it took the city's Board of Elections multiple days to deliver accurate results, leading to fears that the race between Rep. Charlie Rangel and State Senator Adriano Espaillat would devolve into a mini Bush v. Gore. Mayor Bloomberg and the New York Times have called the incident just the latest example of the board's "incompetence," thus, City Council members were surprised to hear Dawn Sandow, the board's deputy executive director, describe "how well the board performed for the voters of New York City," at a Wednesday hearing.

The hearing was called to discuss what led to the problems on primary night, but Sandow said she needed to "set the record straight" because the debacle was actually the media's fault. “Sadly, some members of the media no longer rely on facts or seek to expose the truth, but rather seize on false and sensational allegations promoted by certain candidates for the sole purpose of increasing their name identification,” Sandow said, according to the New York Times.

City Council members were unsympathetic, and stuck with their original plan for the hearing:  berating the board. Christine Quinn was particularly irate, as she and her then-fiancée had their vote disqualified after a poll worker gave them the wrong ballot (eventually their votes were counted). "I am concerned that you entered the analysis of the June federal primary with the mindset that you had done well," said Quinn.

There was other evidence on Wednesday that the Board of Elections did a less than stellar job. The Associated Press reports that a judge ruled in a lawsuit filed by advocates for the disabled in 2010, finding that the city violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by allowing "pervasive and recurring barriers to accessibility" at polling places operated by the board.

The Board of Elections has already made changes to how it conveys preliminary results. Rather than having poll workers tally votes by hand and pass the numbers off to police officers, the NYPD will get memory sticks from ballot scanners and turn over the data to the Associated Press. City Council members said that even though this will eliminate a potential miscount, they're still concerned about the board's ability to carry out the elections on the horizon, including legislative primaries in September and the presidential election in November. "This is the foundation of our democracy and I don't want excuses," said Councilwoman Jessica Lappin. "I want you to do your jobs well."

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Mitt Romney’s Campaign Is Doing Its Best to Distract People from His British Gaffe Jaunt

Romney in London.

In the wake of Mitt Romney's troubled visit to London — where he managed to dis the Olympics and draw the public ire of Prime Minister David Cameron, Mayor Boris Johnson, and most of the British citizenry while blabbing about secret meetings and weirdly undermining his wife and her fancy horse — campaign aide (and work wife) Beth Myers tweeted what looks like the candidate's VP shortlist. When asked about the post (which included @BobbyJindal, @marcorubio, and @robportman), she gave a response both social-media-savvy and regular-media-baiting: "It's a Friday follow." Intriguing, right?

The campaign also announced its readiness for a "Saturday Obama Surprise." What does that mean, you ask? Well, it's a surprise — duh! — but Romney's people would like for everyone to know that they're prepared:

It's well into the afternoon and we haven't noticed any surprises, but we'll go ahead and keep watching because that's our job. The sneaky Obama campaign, for its part, insists that they haven't got anything up their sleeve for today — a spokesman called the suggestion "dog-wagging that would make David Mamet blush."

Meanwhile, observers are still discussing Romney's flubbing of what should have been an easy opportunity to make nice to the outside world. Though he was quick to say that the London gaffe was ultimately "not a big deal," none other than Karl Rove could not help but express his amazement at the candidate's ability to offend our closest ally. "You have to shake your head," he told Fox News Friday. He went to say that while Romney could have stuck to "talking about what a wonderful experience" he had heading the Salt Lake City Olympics, he "instead he got stuck making a, somehow or another that the comments the Brits took as insult, and walked it back pretty quickly and walked it back adroitly but nonetheless the damage was done."

And now it's on to Jerusalem, where Romney's pro-Israel stance and longtime friendship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should make for a warm reception. Of course, we now know that nothing is foolproof.

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