New York State’s new campaign finance system is ripe for fraud and abuse.
Ahead of the June 25 primary election, the state’s Public Campaign Finance Commission awarded more than $8.6 million in matching funds to 69 state legislative candidates, with no real guardrails to prevent shady candidates from defrauding taxpayers.
This commission appears to be just as incompetent as the Cannabis Control Board, which, not coincidentally, was also established under Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
In the spirit of responsible local journalism, The New York Times detailed how Dao Ying, a Flushing Democrat running for state representative, used dummy donors to defraud $162,800 in taxpayer-funded matching funds.
Not surprisingly, New York State funds one of the most generous statewide public matching funds programs in the nation: Every $50 donation earns you $600 in public funding, up to a maximum of $250 donations that earns you $1,800.
For contributions from legislative district residents between $5 and $250, the first $50 will be matched 12 times, the next $100 will be matched 9 times, and the next $100 will be matched 8 times.
More from the Post Editorial Board
And the board’s “oversight” doesn’t seem to do much more than send out checks.
When The Times examined Yoon’s donation card, it found numerous red flags.
At least 48 purported donors said they had never heard of Yin, denied the donations, and said his signatures were forged. Some said they no longer lived at the addresses listed. Nearly $28,000 in cash came from small donors. The majority of his donations, 80%, were cash, about 15 times the average cash percentage of donations for state legislative candidates in the system. Multiple “donor” records were missing key contact information or had other errors. Dao Yin was the campaign treasurer, fundraising director and candidate.
The board’s liaison to Yoon’s camp was unaware of all this and took Yoon at his word that he had sent so-called “good faith” letters to verify suspicious donors.
In fairness, the city’s campaign finance commission may have been similarly lax, taking in more than $1 million from the city in both the 2020 borough president race and the 2021 city council election.
(With the 2025 election season approaching, the City Council will also need to complete an audit of the 2023 City Council elections.)
Start and end your day informed with our newsletter
Morning Report and Evening Update: Your source for today’s top stories
Thank you for your registration!
The folly of the nation was present from the beginning.
According to an April 2018 Siena poll, nearly two-thirds of New York voters oppose public funding of state elections, which they say would cost at least an estimated $100 million every two years.
But Governor Cuomo and the state legislature went ahead with the plan anyway, and in March 2019, they created a committee to design the system.
They packed the committee with political activists, including election lawyer and former de Blasio fixer Henry Berger and state Democratic Representative Jay Jacobs, for whom Gov. Cuomo suspended state restrictions banning party representatives from holding “policy-making” positions in state government.
Currently, the PCFB’s chair and vice chair are former state legislators Barbara Lifton (Democrat) and Brian Kolb (R) – meaning the positions are bipartisan and nepotistic.
But the geniuses also lacked some basic guardrails:
Post-election audits of all campaigns are required. There is sufficient staff to review and monitor campaign filings. The Commission does not have independent subpoena powers to pursue corrupt campaigns.
The hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money distributed by political appointees are a magnet for corrupt people.
This state program is a boon to incumbents and their unscrupulous challengers, but an unnecessary burden on taxpayer wallets.
