26 COURIER LIFE, JULY 2-8, 2021
EDITORIAL
OP-ED
The New York City Board
of Elections (BOE) on
Tuesday released preliminary
results from 11
rounds of ranked-choice voting
(RCV) in the mayoral
race. The problem is, those results
only include ballots from
early voting and Election Day
and there are still more than
100,000 absentee ballots left to
be counted.
The BOE said it would conduct
the count again, in its entirety,
after all absentee ballots
are counted. So, why go
through the initial round of
ranked-choice counting, if the
early results are going to be
ignored for the fi nal results,
which aren’t expected before
July 12?
Making matters worse,
after releasing the preliminary
report, the BOE said late
Tuesday that there is a “discrepancy”
in the unoffi cial
RCV round-by-round elimination
numbers. The BOE said
it is working to address the
issue and is asking the public,
elected offi cials and candidates
to “have patience.”
The BOE then pulled the
results from its website and
released a statement indicating
that it accidentally added
about 135,000 votes to its preliminary
RCV calculations
and promised an accurate
preliminary recount soon.
How can the BOE ask the
public to “have patience”
when the agency completely
lacked patience of its own regarding
the primary election
results. The department
should have simply waited
to count all ballots — every
single vote — before starting
the ranked-choice counts. Instead,
we have chaos, in what
is perhaps the city’s biggest
election cycle in years.
The results of this election
will determine our next
mayor, comptroller, public
advocate and dozens of City
Council members. And now,
because of the BOE’s failure
to successfully implement
RCV on a citywide level, how
can we, the people, fully trust
the results of this election —
never mind the candidates?
The BOE should have practiced
what it preached and patiently
waited for all votes to
be counted before releasing
the unoffi cial RCV round-byround
elimination numbers.
There is no value to creating
the kind of chaos that is now
surrounding this election.
After the troubling events
of the 2020 presidential election,
which saw a sitting president
challenge the democratic
process due to fear of losing, it
is more important than ever
to uphold the integrity of elections
in our city.
The BOE must fi x the mistakes
it made, and must do it
now.
What’s the rush?
As survivors of crime, we can speak for
ourselves: pass parole reform
BY MELISSA TANIS
Following the police killings of
George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and
many others, there’s a popular demand
to redefi ne public safety. However, one
age-old obstacle standing in the way
of progress is a professional class of
pro-prison voices claiming to speak
on behalf of victims and survivors of
crime. Invariably, these voices refl exively
oppose long-overdue and common
sense reforms – even when many
actual victims and survivors support
the reforms.
Recently, one District Attorney
spoke out against two bills to address
the crisis of aging, death and despair
in our increasingly geriatric prisons
— Elder Parole and Fair & Timely Parole
— claiming that lawmakers were
considering reforms “without regard
to victims.” (Other current and former
DAs support the bills.)
In fact, lawmakers who support
the reforms do so, in part, at the urging
of victims. I am one of them — and
I’m not alone. The New York State Coalition
Against Sexual Assault, the
Crime Victims Treatment Center and
others are backing these bills, along
with hundreds of racial justice, civil
rights, public health, faith and older
adults services groups.
Parole reform would give people in
prison, particularly older adults serving
long sentences, a fair chance to be
considered for release by the Board of
Parole on a case-by-case basis. Importantly,
studies show this population
poses little or no risk of violating the
law again.
These bills are about reuniting
families and improving public safety
by bringing parents, mentors and future
non-profi t leaders home. As the
daughter of someone who died in
prison, I know that separating families
and allowing our loved ones to
age, get sick, and pass away in prison
regardless of their personal transformation
does absolutely no good.
In addition to losing my dad in
prison, I am a victim/survivor of multiple
crimes, some which resulted in
a person’s incarceration and others
which did not. In every situation, the
criminal justice system did not provide
healing for me. Therapy, community
support, and seeing the transformation
of some who harmed me are
what allowed me to heal and fi ght for
better resources and options for other
crime survivors.
If someone who harmed me has
taken accountability and shown capacity
to change and not harm someone
again, that is the best justice I
could ask for. Many behind bars have
created or facilitated restorative justice
programs that help others take
accountability and repair harm. Reforms
that center parole release decisions
on precisely these transformations
will help to provide healing for
countless others like me.
Victims hold diverse views, but the
only national survey of crime victims
and survivors found most prioritized
rehabilitation over permanent punishment.
Many victims recognize that
the person who harmed them may,
themselves, be a victim, and that prisons
that purportedly exist to prevent
harm are actually plagued with sexual
assault and other violence, particularly
at the hands of staff.
New York must provide meaningful
opportunities for incarcerated
people’s rehabilitation to be assessed
by passing the Elder Parole and Fair &
Timely Parole bills. If a person is fully
rehabilitated, what argument is there
to keep them behind bars? The question
only becomes more urgent when
you consider that the bills, if enacted,
would save our state more than half a
billion dollars every year – money that
could instead go toward actually supporting
victims. The truth is that our
current, costly system is less about
public safety and more about racism
and vengeance.
Survivors who are tired of being
used to justify perpetual punishment
that devastates mostly Black and
Brown communities deserve to have
our voices heard. For these reasons
and more, State lawmakers must pass
parole reform.
Melissa Tanis is a social worker and
organizer with the People’s Campaign
for Parole Justice.
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