The following report appeared in a recent Buffalo News edition.

The Editorial Board: Parlato ballot swap shows gaps in New York's fusion system

https://buffalonews.com/opinion/edit...e6d1bf967.html

New York’s crooked system of fusion voting has struck again. This time it’s collusion by the Republican and Conservative parties, which jumped through hoops to ensure that one candidate – Conservative Beth Parlato – didn’t drain votes away from the other – Republican Chris Jacobs. Once again, voters have been had.

This is a bipartisan manipulation that Democrats have also been happy to use. If it’s not quite rigging the election, it’s close to it. New York needs to do away with it, and the related, anti-democratic problems of cross-endorsements and of “fusion voting” in which candidates can appear on more than one party’s line.

Fusion voting is a different kind of abomination. It confuses voting and encourages corrupt deals among party bosses. It is unwarranted life support for parties that have too little public backing to survive on their own. So why bother?


Comment

As a lifelong ‘blank’, unable to vote in a primary, fusion voting never bothered me until several years ago when manipulation and corruption between major and minor political parties became so prominent in Lancaster that it took away from an individual the right to vote on a line other than Democrat or Republican.

For years, I found it abhorrent to vote for a candidate on either the Democrat or Republican ballot lines. I will only do so if I can’t find my candidate of choice on a minor party line. It has become more difficult to find that candidate because too often the endorsed party candidate does not appear on the ballot line.

With primarying against candidates endorsed by minor parties, candidates who had requested interview, were interviewed, vetted and selected by majority committee vote, too often that candidate is primaried by an individual who did not request party interview, was not vetted and in fact does not share or represent that party’s ideology / philosophy.

Is that fair? All’s fair in love, war and politics! What is not right is that in Lancaster this year the true registered conservative will not be on the Conservative line ballot.

It is my understanding that some of the minor lines may be gone after this election year based on party voter turnout percentage. No big deal with the Independence Party because it has become manipulated and corrupted. It appears the Conservative Party will exist. If so, I would like to see a rule change where the party endorsed candidate is the one appearing on the ballot – no primary

No l1th hour flip-flopping by an individual endorsed by another party to register into another party to be eligible to run for office – especially when that individual has been a lifelong member of the endorsed party having a different ideology and when serving on that party as a committee member.

It is troubling to hear that the BOE Commissioners may be players in the deceit.

I would miss the independence of fusion voting, but not with the systemic fraud now taking place.