Workers Say They Were Pressured to Pay for N.Y.C. Election Jobs
The New York Times
A Republican Board of Elections employee was charged with taking kickbacks in exchange for jobs working the polls in the Bronx. Other employees say it did not end with her.
When a Republican employee of the New York City Board of Elections told a woman that if she paid $150, she could have a job working at the polls during local elections, the woman hesitated but eventually agreed.
Unable to afford the fee on her own, she said she went to her husband, who gave her the money, even though he felt uneasy about the deal.
The small payment, she said, seemed worth it for the chance to earn a few thousand dollars for election work.
Poll workers in the Bronx say her experience was not unusual — and that it has been going on for years.
The woman is among several election workers who say that Board of Elections staff members and officials of the Bronx Republican Party inappropriately pressured them into paying for jobs or that they saw their peers similarly pressured. Three people who paid for their positions spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs.
Their stories follow a federal investigation that culminated in the indictment by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of a Board of Elections employee who was charged last August with extortion, bribery and fraud after federal prosecutors said she took kickbacks to place Bronx residents in temporary election jobs. The employee who was indicted, Nicole Torres, is expected to plead guilty in April after making a deal with prosecutors, court records show. Her lawyer, Amy Gallicchio, declined to comment.
