Friday, October 31, 2014

Top NY Dems have not voted in recent elections


The state Democratic Party needs to send menacing get-out-the-vote letters to a new group of slackers — its own leaders.


A Post review of Board of Elections records found that Democratic Party brass — including state party Chairman David Paterson and Brooklyn Democratic leader Frank Seddio — didn’t vote in recent elections.


The revelation comes a day after it was disclosed that the state Democratic Party sent threatening letters to a million voters warning it was going to monitor whether they voted on Tuesday.


Party leaders could have used the same warning. Records show Paterson skipped last year’s Democratic runoff election for public advocate between Letitia James and Daniel Squadron.


Paterson, who served as governor from 2008 to 2010, also didn’t vote in the 2005 race for mayor, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg defeated Democrat Fernando Ferrer, official records show.


Soon after he became the Brooklyn Democratic leader, Seddio missed a chance in 2012 to pull the lever for President Obama.


“Frank was managing several campaigns that day,” said Seddio spokesman George Arzt. “When he went to vote, the lines were extremely long and the waiting time was an hour and a half. He had to get back to campaign operations.”


Government watchdogs slammed the Democratic power brokers’ hypocrisy.


“The party leaders need to practice what they preach,” said Citizens Union director Dick Dadey. “It doesn’t send a good message when you’re asking other people to vote and you don’t vote yourself.”


Paterson declined to comment.



Carl HeastiePhoto: Robert Kalfus



Two other borough Democratic Party leaders — Carl Heastie of The Bronx and Keith Wright of Manhattan — also missed votes, according to board records.


But both insisted the records were wrong and said they had cast ballots.


Heastie, who otherwise has an unblemished voting record, was recorded as not voting in the November 2013 mayoral election.


“I voted in the general election,” said Heastie, a Bronx assemblyman.


Wright was recorded as absent in the hotly contested 2008 presidential primary between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.


But Wright said he not only voted in that election, but “I vote in each and every election. I bring my wife and two children with me.”


Denise Browne, who coordinated polling operations in Harlem that day, vouched for Wright, saying she saw him vote.


Rep. Joe Crowley, the Queens Democratic Party chairman, was listed as not voting in the 2009 runoff for comptroller. Crowley declined to comment.





Yahoo Local News – New York Post




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