New York City Board of Elections

The Board of Elections in the City of New York (NYCBOE) conducts New York elections within New York City. It is an administrative body of ten Commissioners, two from each borough upon recommendation by both political parties and then appointed by the New York City Council for a term of four years.
The NYCBOE has been characterized as rife with nepotism and dysfunction. The structure of the NYCBOE is enshrined in the New York state constitution. The NYCBOE is run in a bipartisan manner, as each job position held by a Democrat must have a duplicated position for a Republican. The staff in the organization are political appointees rather than professional staff.
History and criticism.
The Board has come under fire for errors and mismanagement in a number of elections:
Role and responsibilities.
The Board of Elections in the City of New York, as provided under , is responsible for:
The Board is responsible under the Election Law for the following:
Organization and structure.
The Board is made up of ten commissioners, two from each of the five boroughs of New York City, appointed by the City Council for four-year terms. One member from each borough is appointed by each of the two parties whose candidates got the most votes in the last gubernatorial election. Since the top two candidates in the last election represented the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party get five representatives each on the Board of Elections. The ten Commissioners meet once a week. Day-to-day operations of the BOE are led by an appointed Executive Director and Deputy Executive Director, who oversee a "similar bipartisan arrangement of over 351 deputies, clerks and other personnel ensures that no one party controls the Board of Elections."
"City & State" notes, "The Board of Elections is unique in that it is one of the city's few truly bipartisan administrative bodies, with five commissioners from each party overseeing its operations. While members consider this structure the best way to run fair and balanced elections, others contend that it engenders gridlock, as commissioners from both parties are not necessarily working toward a common interest but instead trying to ensure that the elections play out in their party's favor." For example, former state Assemblyman Michael Benjamin, who formerly was an elections clerk in the Bronx, "said that he witnessed firsthand the hyperpartisan nature of the board when two deputy clerks in Brooklyn and Staten Island gave conflicting instructions to their staff and refused to work together, creating confusion on the ground level" that inhibited the ability of the mayor and City Council to trust the Board to properly use funding.
The mayor has no power over the BOE. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was a vocal critic of the Board, which was the subject of complaints over its administration of elections, and called for the Board to become a mayoral agency rather than an independent body.