NEXT GENERAL CLUB MEETING: WED, MAY 7, 2014 AT 7:30 PM
Trattoria Lucia Restaurant, 247-63 Jericho Tpke, Bellerose, NY 11426
INFORMATIONAL MEETING ON VOTING AND ELECTION ISSUES
FEATURED SPEAKER: MICHAEL J. RYAN, ESQ.
Executive Director of the Board of Elections in the City of New York
Michael Zummo: President at The Federalist Society Long Island Lawyers Chapter
Brief presentation on the Electoral College
Dennis Saffran: Former Republican candidate for City Council in CD-19
Brief presentation on the issue of non-citizen voting in NYC
THE INTEGRITY OF THE VOTING SYSTEM
Voting is the privilege and responsibility of every citizen of the United States. We enjoy freedom of speech, the press, assembly and religion, freedom from illegal searches and seizures, the right to bear arms and to a fair trial. In return for these freedoms, we exercise our right to vote in order to sustain our Constitutional Republic, established by our Founding Fathers. Millions of Iraqi and Afghani voters risked their lives going to the polls to vote. Our soldiers valiantly fought and gave their lives in every war since the American Revolution, to preserve our liberties and our privilege to vote.
The issue of free elections and the integrity of our voting system is so central to our American democratic process, yet so often neglected and relegated to the back-burner. The Queens Village Republican Club has put this issue back on the front-burner with our May 7 informational meeting on voting and elections. We are most fortunate to have as our featured speaker, Michael J. Ryan, the Executive Director of New York City’s Board of Elections.
MICHAEL J. RYAN, ESQ.
Mr. Ryan’s background is largely in the field of criminal justice as a practicing attorney. In addition to his private law practice, he served the public on matters of criminal justice policy serving in the Office of the Governor of New York and later in the Office of the Mayor in the City of New York. He began serving with the Board of Elections in 2010 and in August 2013, he was appointed to the position of Executive Director of the Board of Elections.
The informational meeting will give you an opportunity to ask questions, express your concerns about the integrity of the voting process and bring up any incidents of fraud and voting irregularities you may have experienced in past elections. A couple of incidents come to mind.
Several years ago, someone voted in the name of a well-known Bellerose civic leader, Michael Augugliaro. Inside the polling place, no one at the E.D. table realized a fraudster was at work, unless they were in on it. When the real Mike Augugliaro showed up later in the day, the E.D. inspectors denied him the right to vote. After some discussion, he was allowed to vote on an affidavit ballot. The fake Mike was the second voter in the morning to vote at that table, but the school had no cameras and we could not ascertain who it was. Jim Trent, QVGOP Club Board Chairman, wrote about this to all four NYS Election Commissioners. Not one responded.
There were several complaints of irregularities after the 2013 General Election such as poll workers telling voters that they have to vote straight down the line. Also the New York Post ran a story on the Department of Investigation probe of the NYC Board of Elections. The probe involved investigators posing as dead voters who were allowed to cast ballots and vote multiple times. According to the DOI report, interviews with a former BOE employee revealed that the BOE maintains active voter registrations for people who are not eligible to vote, including deceased individuals, felons, and nonresidents of New York City, and duplicate registrations for some voters.
There is a lot of ground to cover on this critical topic, and this informational meeting will present an overview to whet your appetite for further research and action. It has been reported that City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito will likely be pushing legislation for non-citizen voting and possibly organizing an override if she suspects the mayor plans to veto it. Also New York was the most recent state to sign on to the “National Popular Vote Agreement” which would discard the Electoral College and award the presidency to the winner of the popular vote. This alleged end run around the constitutional amendment process, as some claim, would expectedly drive the Democrat political machines to maximize turnout in populous cities like NYC. Well-informed speakers from the Long Island Chapter of the Federalist Society will briefly address these topics as well.
You may submit questions for our featured speaker or document in writing any voting irregularities you may have experienced. Send them to maduroman@att.net prior to the meeting. We look forward to seeing you and hearing your questions and comments at the May Club Meeting. Please bring a friend.
