A New York Post opinion piece on Monday alleged that members of the City Council, working with former Kings County Democratic leader Frank Seddio, tried to keep pro-housing charter revision questions off the November ballot by raising a late challenge to the clarity of the measures’ language.
The piece said the challenge, surfaced only days before a Board of Elections vote that would send the items to printers, was timed to leave little opportunity for a court challenge or other reversal. The measures, which the piece described as proposals to give mayors greater authority over housing development by limiting the informal veto power individual councilmembers exercise over rezonings, had been certified by the City Clerk the previous month.
According to the opinion column, Michael Nagle, executive director of the City Charter Revision Commission, called the last-minute move “unprecedented, undemocratic and unlawful.” The column reported that Seddio led the Board of Elections to invalidate the measures on the grounds that their language was confusing.
The City Clerk, a council appointee, had previously certified the charter questions without raising concerns about their wording, the column noted. Under established practice and case law, the Board of Elections’ role in placing charter revision questions on the ballot is generally considered ministerial — limited to ensuring questions are timely and properly certified — rather than a discretionary authority to judge content.
The timing of the challenge was a central point in the column’s account. It reported that the deadline for the Board of Elections to approve ballot questions and meet printing schedules was driven in part by federal law requiring timely delivery of ballots to military and overseas voters. The column said the challenge was raised only after the City Clerk’s certification and with days to spare before the BOE’s scheduled action.
The opinion piece also described how the Board of Elections is constituted: commissioners are nominated by county party leaders and then appointed by the City Council. That arrangement, the column argued, posed a conflict because the council could be seen as directing commissioners it helped install. The piece called for accountability for any commissioners who voted to remove the measures.
The column included additional reporting about Seddio’s recent legal activity, saying that in the past 12 months he had filed more than 500 no-fault auto insurance lawsuits on behalf of a Brooklyn physician who has faced allegations of insurance fraud. The column presented those filings as context for its portrayal of Seddio’s conduct.
City officials and Board of Elections commissioners did not provide comment in the opinion column responding to the allegations. The council’s ability to influence the BOE through appointments is a matter of public record; how or whether that influence played a role in the timing or substance of the challenge has not been independently verified in reporting beyond the opinion piece.
If the BOE declines to advance the questions, the measures would be removed from the November ballot; if the board approves them, they will be printed in time to meet deadlines for military and overseas ballots. The disputed charter proposals would change how the city’s land-use decisions are made by adjusting the balance of power between the mayor’s office and individual councilmembers on rezonings and related approvals.
Legal experts and election-law advocates say disputes over ballot language and certification processes are not uncommon in tightly scheduled election cycles, but they also note that courts have generally limited the BOE’s role to ministerial tasks in placing properly certified charter questions before voters. Any court challenges to a BOE decision to remove a certified question would likely turn on procedural rules and statutory deadlines as well as the commission’s stated basis for invalidation.
The outcome of the Board of Elections vote, and any subsequent legal response, will determine whether the pro-housing charter proposals appear on the November ballot and could shape the city’s authority over housing approvals going forward.