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Photo Voters at Public School 62 in Brooklyn in 2016. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

In its politics, New York City is solidly Democratic. If only the politicians were as resolutely democratic. All too often, they have a tendency to freeze out the very people who are supposed to decide who fills elective offices. Those people are known as voters.

The phenomenon is not new, but it has been on conspicuous display in recent weeks.

David Greenfield, a City Council member from Brooklyn, filed for re-election, then announced he was leaving to head an antipoverty group. Daniel Squadron, a state senator from a Brooklyn-Manhattan district, said he was resigning to form a nonprofit group that would cultivate a new breed of office seekers. Herman Farrell, a state assemblyman from Manhattan since 1975, announced this week that he would step down on Sept. 5, the anniversary of his first government job working for a state judge 51 years ago.

Sentiment, however, was not Mr. Farrells sole guide, just as it wasnt for the other men. Democrats all, they timed their departures so that picking successors would in effect fall to party leaders, not to registered Democratic voters.

Thats because the filing deadline had come and gone for potential candidates to enter primaries that will be held on Sept. 12. By default, Democratic county committees now get to pick who runs for those seats in the Nov. 7 general election. Their Republican counterparts will do the same. But the chances of Democrats losing in those districts are equal to those of LOsservatore Romano criticizing the pope. The vacant seats will effectively be filled by party stalwarts.

This is gaming the system. The party is central and the voter is collateral, and thats backwards, said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York. Dick Dadey, executive director of the good-government group Citizens Union, called it outrageous.

There are possible repairs for this election cycle, if the political powers want to move fast. Party primaries for the vacant seats could be held on Nov. 7, Mr. Dadey suggested, with a general election scheduled a few weeks later. Or perhaps, Ms. Lerner said, officials could speed up the petition-signing process for candidates, forget about primaries and go right to an open election one step.

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New York Democrats Snub the Voters - New York Times