NEW YORK — While this week’s vote counting snafu at the New York City Board of Elections has been attributed to unintentional human error, this may have been the last straw for the scandal-plagued agency.

There has been talk of reforming the troubled board for years, but nothing has passed in Albany to actually change it, even though there is already a bill to do exactly that.

“The bill sets up qualification requirements for the executive directors of the city Board of elections,” Democratic Queens Assemblywoman Nily Rozic said. “It also increases reporting and accountability measures.”

The structure of the board is considered by many to be outdated. It consists of ten commissioners, two from each borough, appointed by Democratic and Republican Party bosses. Critics say it’s long been considered a patronage pit, which party leaders control.

“Up until now, I don’t think it’s been particularly clear to the voters who is really responsible,” said Susan Lerner, of Common Cause New York. “It’s the political parties in each of the boroughs that appoint the commissioners, and the commissioners are only accountable to the political parties. So they ignore the voters and they put the interests of the political parties and their candidates first.”

Responding to the counting error this week, State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart- Cousins announced that the Senate will hold hearings on the board, with an eye toward passing legislation to reform it.

In a statement, Stewart-Cousins said, “The situation in New York City is a national embarrassment and must be dealt with promptly and properly.”

Government watchdog groups say, to truly break from what some consider to be a broken system, a state constitutional amendment is needed to change how the board functions.

“A constitutional amendment, which would essentially strip all the patronage and all the politics out of the city Board of Elections, is one route to do this. The problem with that is it doesn’t take effect until at least 2024. And we’ve seen problem after problem,” Rozic said  “If we want to fix those right now, we need to mitigate that damage right now. And the way to do that is through the bill I carry with Sen. Krueger.”

What’s unclear is if the Assembly will join the Senate in these hearings, which would give them more of a punch. While the chair of the election law committee says they plan to join Senate colleagues, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has made no commitment to do so.

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