In today’s mail, I received a mailing from Nicole Malliotakis for Mayor. The mailing—an 8.5″ x 11″ letter and a 4″ x 9″ card—was addressed to me as a voter who is not enrolled in a political party, urging me to go to the polls on Tuesday, because unaffiliated voters apparently are allowed to vote in the Reform Party’s primary. Nicole Malliotakis is looking for write-in votes in her campaign to get on the ballot, because it appears that the only candidate currently on the ballot is Sal Albanese.

I applauded the concept of the mailing. I’ve long had a problem with the two-party stranglehold on political power in the United States, since neither the Republicans nor the Democrats completely represent my views, so anything (like this) which may put a wedge into that firmly closed door barring other parties gets my stamp of approval.

Unfortunately, then I actually read the mailing. Toward the bottom of the letter, she urges readers to visit her web site… and then typos the url! Yep, the body of the letter directs me to http://www.NiccoleforMayor2017.com [sic]. Unfortunately, her name (and the url) are spelled with one “c”, not two.

Then, on the card which shows how to mark my ballot and how to vote, in two separate places (once on each side), she tells me I am “elligible” to vote in the Reform Party Primary. Again, a doubled letter where there shouldn’t be.

Finally, in the instructions for marking my ballot, number 4 reads “Any other mark or writing, or any erasure made on this for voting will void this entire than there are vacancies to be filled, your ballot will be void for that public office or party position.” That’s a letter-for-letter transcription of the card, and yes, there are definitely some words missing in the middle of that sentence.

So what do I do? I really like the idea of a write-in candidate campaigning for votes. (However, in the spirit of full disclosure, she’s also running in the Republican primary against Rocky De La Fuente and someone who didn’t submit any information to the New York City voters’ guide.) On the other hand, I think someone spending this much money for this mailing, who wants me to vote for her for mayor of New York City, ought to have at least hired a freelance editor to look over these few words, to make sure they were correct.

Edited September 9th to add: Credit where credit is due. I emailed the above to Nicole’s campaign headquarters, and received the following response: “Thank you for your feedback, Ian. We now have an opening on the team for a proof reader since we terminated the one who worked on this mailing. I hope you will give us a second chance to make a good impression.”

#malliotakis #election2017 #nycmayor #editing