Crossing the Line?

All appeared to have gone well with the Citizen Nominating Committee election on Tuesday November 15th. Participation was good, absentee ballots were mailed – not hand delivered -- and there were no poll watchers on site. Everyone involved breathed a sigh of relief that voting abuses and partisan politics were a thing of the past – and the consensus was that faith had been restored in the Non-Partisan system.

However, a letter from Bill Doescher in the Scarsdale Inquirer revealed that all was not as it should be. According to Doescher whose wife Linda Blair ran for the CNC, two residents had used the email lists of their respective neighborhood associations to endorse selected candidates. In these emails they endorsed candidates without consulting the current leadership of their neighborhood associations. Ironically a sitting member of the Procedure Committee sent out one of the emails, despite the fact that as a Procedure Committee member he had a duty to recruit candidates and insure a fair election.

Possibly as a result of these emails the endorsed candidates, Anita Mann of the Overhill Neighborhood Association and Salvatore Rao of the Old Scarsdale Neighborhood Association, beat the two Fox Meadow Neighborhood Association candidates, Linda Blair and Ted Tyberg. It is not clear what the Overhill and Old Scarsdale residents believed was at stake – or if their candidates have specific agendas.

Historically, the neighborhood associations have played an important role in the election by cooperating with the Procedure Committee to recruit candidates to run for the CNC and ensure that there are ample names on the ballot. I know from firsthand experience that the Greenacres Neighborhood Association has acted in a non-partisan fashion to support the system and to encourage widespread resident involvement in the process.

One could argue that there is no rule against campaigning via email, and no specific rule against neighborhood association candidate endorsements. But clearly endorsing candidates from one neighborhood over another and utilizing neighborhood association email lists to politic could serve to undermine the process. Down the line, it may prove to be even more difficult to get people to run for the CNC if they know that their own neighborhood association could swing the race.

This most recent transgression warrants discussion when the Procedure Committee and the League of Women Voters review the 2011 election.

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