NEW YORK — Jan Combopiano has been a poll worker for four years, helping direct voters every year to cast their ballots.

On Wednesday, she showed up at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn to tell state lawmakers what it was really like to help run a city election.

"There were nine of us,” she said from the stage. “There should have been 26."

26 poll workers that is.

On Primary Day this year, only a third of the poll workers showed up to work at her site. She had to scramble to find more.

"I begged the Board of Elections for more poll workers,” she said. “They were like, 'We totally understand. Tons of other poll sites don't have enough people as well.'"

It was one of many concerning stories at the state Senate's elections hearing in Brooklyn.

"It is a relic of Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed and a patronage system that we know leads to corruption, inefficient practices and voter suppression,” Brooklyn District Leader Julio Pena said.

Moments later, there was another assessment from another poll worker:

"One of the issues recognized by everyone is that the cronyism is truly rampant within the ranks of the Board of Elections, and the sort of tension between the parties and the Board of Elections creates a conflict that puts the poll worker in the middle,” said Mary Vaughan, who has been a poll worker for four years.

There were claims of party politics and nepotism run amok, dysfunction within the agency and a lack of training for poll workers.

The state Senate committee is examining how it can change the structure of the Board of Elections, potentially reforming how the partisan agency is run.

"There is too much nepotism. There is too much cronyism. There is potential for corruption,” State Sen. Zellnor Myrie told NY1 after listening to hours of testimony. “While appreciating that many employees of the board, including the poll workers, are there for the right reason and they are trying their best, our democracy is too precious for it to be left up to an agency or entity that is not professional."

The state Senate will hold hearings in other parts of the state next week. The series of public forums will culminate in September in Albany, where they will hear directly from Board of Elections staff. Myrie says he hopes the state legislature will take up some sort of reform during its next session, which begins in January.

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