by Lucretia Regina-Potter

As the Female Republican District Leader of the 49^th Assembly District, I vehemently oppose the latest proposed reapportionment of the 49^th AD by the NYS Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LAFTOR). The lines that have been drawn are arbitrary, capricious, and politically motivated attempts by the legislators of BOTH parties whose only preoccupation is to preserve their political position.

In my opinion, their actions of self-preservation go even further in the 49^th Assembly District. I strongly believe these actions show a clear conspiracy and the outright and prevailing intent to eliminate my position as the duly elected Female Republican District Leader of the 49^th AD. This is in fact evident when we look at the map of the new district as suggested by LAFTOR.     http://www.latfor.state.ny.us/maps/prop2012a/pa049.pdf

The camouflage becomes more evident when LAFTOR claims that their intent is to create an Asian-American district out of the 49^th AD, which has historically been an Italian –American district: a falsis principiis proficisci or a false starting premise. At this point, the question can be raised: Why is an Asian-American district better than an Italian-American district? Why the change? A change of a district lines based only on ethnic reasons is outright wrong, divisive, and even against the law. When we consider that affinity and community interests should be an integral part of the make up of any district we discover that these factors are conspicuously missing.

To cut me out of the 49^th AD and place me into the 46^th AD serves only to get rid of a viable opponent and possible challenger through a candidacy for office to the powers that be, regardless of political affiliation. It is for these reasons that I strongly support Governor Cuomo’s determination to veto all the proposed redistricting plans. To that effect, I have sent the following letter to only person who has the power to stop this farce and bring positive changes to the actions of those people who make up what has been described as the most “dysfunctional legislature in the United States.”

No one has crossed the Rubicon yet!  I strongly urge all people who love good and fair government “of the people, by the people, for the people” to do something.  Step up and be counted!

“Ante alea iacta est” or before the die is cast.

Lucretia Regina-Potter is the Female Republican District Leader of the 49^th Assembly District in Brooklyn, N.Y.  She can be reached at contact@LucretiaRegina-Potter.com

www.LucretiaRegina-Potter.com

Letter to Governor Cuomo:

_________________________________________________________________________________

January 30, 2012

Dear Governor Cuomo:

As the Female Republican District Leader of the 49 Assembly District, I would like to add my opposition to the proposed reapportionment of the NYS Assembly Districts and in particular, of the 49^th AD in Brooklyn. The politicians of both parties camouflage the issue under the appearance of creating districts that better represent their ethnic composition. However, they are disenfranchising thousands of people, mostly of the same background who have lived in the same community for generations. The proposed reapportionment of the 49^th AD also denies these people of their constitutional right to live in an area of their choice. Many the reasons that affect their choice include affinity, as well as shared geographic and community interests.

My Italian-American ancestors, just like your ancestors, decided to live and raise their family in an area of their choice. I have lived and raised my children in Bensonhurst, one of the most Italian-American communities in the State of New York. This community has always welcomed immigrants of many ethnic groups, and today we can proudly say that our community is one of the best examples of people living together and working hard regardless of their ethnic background. I believe to express the opinion of the greatest majority of the people of Dyker Heights, Bath Beach, Bensonhurst, and Bay Ridge when I say that reapportionments based only on ethnic reason, and disregarding the natural geographical locations and affinity denomination of the population of a community, is not the intended objective of the law.

One example of the political manipulation and distortion of the intent of the law is the 46^th Assembly District, where a part of the district is connected to the rest of the district only by virtue of miles of unpopulated highway. This is not only absurd, but also against any practical reason for the establishment of the disparity of such a district.

In my modest opinion, the only reason why the 49^th AD is being “sliced and diced” appears to be a direct and blatant attempt to eliminate and remove me from my strong position of District Leader and the destruction of the base of my constituency, thus eliminating any possible future challenges as candidate for public office.

I support your stand on this issue and I sincerely hope that you will veto such a blatant disregard of the rights of the people and reckless actions of members of the legislature of both parties.

Sincerely,

Lucretia Regina-Potter

Republican District Leader 49AD

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Proposed Map of 49th AD-LAFTOR

The following article makes an interesting point about the ineptitude and inability of the NY Board of Elections to count a vote. Overvoting is a common problem with the new voting system implemented in 2010. The fact that the Board allowed “invalid” ballots to be submitted and then tossed out raises many other questions, especially for political candidates like yours truly. It appears to be very convenient for the “powers that be” that the Board “lost” the overvote data for 56% of the election districts in Brooklyn and Queens! Just an interesting fact that hopefully makes voters more aware and more alert when they go to the polls.

Lucretia Regina-Potter, Republican District Leader 49AD

State Board of Elections allows these optical scanning machines to discard your votes.

EDITORIAL- NY Daily News

Monday, December 12, 2011

Tens of thousands of New Yorkers who went to the polls in 2010 were disenfranchised thanks to the rank incompetence of the state Board of Elections.

That panel — as opposed to the equally inept city operation — set the procedures for casting paper ballots that are counted by electronic scanners. One basic question was how the scanners would deal with ballots on which voters had filled in two ovals for the same race.

For example, one oval for candidate Andrew Cuomo and one oval for candidate Carl Paladino.

Such multiple voting — termed overvoting — was impossible with the old mechanical voting machines. You could not pull the lever and record your vote if you had flicked two switches in a race.

Numerous voting watchdog groups urged the state board to program scanners so they would spit back a ballot with an overvote, clearly alerting a voter of the need to make a fix.

This was simple. This was certain. This was rejected.

Instead, the board set the scanners to display a confusing message informing voters they had overvoted and — hard to believe — actually enticed people to submit the invalid ballots.

Oh, and those ballots would not count.

The Brennan Center at NYU Law School sued before the election to prevent mass disenfranchisement. The board forged ahead nonetheless. Now, the suit has begun to reveal how often voters cast invalid ballots.

Partial results have discovered 50,000 votes that were invalidated, with more to come. Even getting the data was difficult because half the local boards across the state didn’t have the information. As for the city board, those dim bulbs lost the overvote data for 56% of the election districts in Brooklyn and Queens.

Clarity in the voting booth is critical to credible elections. So, too, a full count of votes. New York’s Board of Elections is delivering neither, and it’s offering only an inadequate fix — such as modifying the confusing message on the scanners to at least say the ballot won’t count. But they’re not sure they can even put that minimal change into place by the 2012 election, now a year away.

Forget it. The scanners should be programmed to reject any ballot that has conflicting multiple votes in the same race.

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-12-12/news/30509604_1_ballots-overvote-scanners#

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Arnaldo A. Ferraro, Ph.D.

HERE WE GO AGAIN!

In a déjà-vu reapportionment conspiracy of the 49^th Assembly District in Brooklyn, the recently proposed drafted maps of Senate and Assembly districts by the groups Latino Justice PRLDEF, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Center for Law and Social Justice and the National Institute for Latino Politics are certainly not ones that provide “fair ethnic representation” to the people of certain areas, as they claim.

In analyzing the plan of the proposed map of the 49^th Assembly District, it seems, in my opinion, that the reapportionment of the 49^th Assembly District was mostly based on two simple objectives. The first is to reapportion out of her district, Lucretia Regina-Potter, the Republican Female State Committeewoman of the 49^th AD, and perennial nemesis of both the current Democratic Assemblyman Peter Abbate and Republican Kings County Chairman Craig Eaton.

If this seems to be a far fetched conclusion, please look at the political events in the 49^th Assembly District in the last six years, and more recently the Assembly and Leadership races that have just passed. They will illustrate and support this theory. Lucretia Regina-Potter is very active in the 49^th Assembly District and raises awareness and issues relevant to her community, much to the chagrin of those currently holding office.

By looking at the suggested new “unity” map of the 49^th AD, one can also see two very important as well curious facts: the border of the new district ends at Bath Avenue, just one block away from Cropsey Avenue where Lucretia Regina-Potter lives. Coincidental? I would say very strange. One more block would not have drastically changed whatever other objective that this plan wants to accomplish. On the other hand, conveniently so, the current Assemblyman is kept into the District by virtually “carving” his residence address by adding a small portion of two adjacent Streets near his mother’s house. Again, coincidence? Certainly, very strange!

Also consider that all other political players in this proposed reapportionment of the 49^th AD remain in the District; including the two current Democratic District Leaders, the Republican Male District Leader, and a former young Republican candidate for District Leader that run against the ticket headed by Lucretia-Regina-Potter in 2011.

The second arguably grandiose objective of this prejudiced and ill-conceived reapportioning plan is easily dismissible. The creation of any ethnic Districts would not reflect the best interests of the community, including the ethnic group that it purports to enhance. This is indicated in the following map proposed by the above mentioned groups.

The Fiorello LaGuardia Republican Organization, its Leadership, and its members all rise in strong opposition to a plan dictated by political and selfish individual interests!

UNITY MAP

A joint draft proposal for New York State Assembly and State Senate district maps that adjust for the changing demographics and afford fair representation for New Yorkers of every race and ethnicity

Proposed by
LatinoJustice PRLDEF, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Center for Law and Social Justice and the National Institute for Latino Politics

http://aaldef.org/unity-map.html

BROOKLYN
Assembly District 49 Proposal

Part II

A Simple Solution:

What was described in Part I of this series is but one example of the manipulative plan by the powers that be to protect their incumbency and at the same time to eliminate possible challengers. In the case of the 49^th Assembly District, the elimination of a strong challenger seems to have been the main intention of the plan. It would not be surprising if those Republicans who are supposed to unite the party were also collaborating in this scheme. What brings one to this conclusion is the fact that the person we referred to previously as “a young former Republican candidate for District Leader that run against the LaGuardia Ticket”, is barely kept in the proposed District. A logical question would then be “Why?”

A simple solution to this mess created by enacting such a manipulative plan would be to extend the proposed lines by only one block, the one block that was intentionally eliminated in order to reapportion Lucretia Regina-Potter out of the 49^th AD. Obviously, this is not going to happen, at least if those who have planned this scheme have the power to decide. To quote Bill Hammond of the Daily News “quite simply, districts are rigged to be shoo-ins for incumbents,” even if this means to use their powers directly against their opponents.

In conclusion, all this hoopla about the long awaited districts reapportionment is just another exercise in futility or, better yet, another show of selfish greet of the egotistical and unscrupulous  incumbent public officials, regardless of Party affiliation, especially of those in the majority.

This makes everyone long for the non-partisan, independent redistricting commission auspicated by former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, supported by Governor Andrew Cuomo, and the greatest majority of legislators in New York State.

Arnaldo A. Ferraro, Ph.D. is the Former Assemblyman of the 49AD, and the Founder/Chairman of the Fiorello LaGuardia Republican Organization

He can be reached at contact@LaGuardiaRepublicanClub.org