Editorial
Editorial: New York needs a cop on the elections beat
Photo credit: AP | Voting at the Northport City Hall voting location in Northport, Ala. Tuesday. (Nov. 6, 2012)
The state Board of Elections in Albany has no investigators trolling over campaign filings of candidates or going over lists of donors, expenditures and contributions. Not even one.
A few years ago, the agency had three, and the reduction means there's no real enforcement of campaign financing laws. That's got to change if Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is as serious about reform as he claims.
The lack of scrutiny leaves candidates to police themselves, which isn't good enough in a state where thousands of campaign committees with millions on hand don't abide by the law. Voters have a right to know that when political candidates report who's contributing to their campaigns, those reports comply with the law. For that to happen, the state needs cops on the election beat.
