Just a week before Election Day, the Board of Elections voted today to oust its own executive director, George Gonzalez.

The BOE board vote seems to signal that election commissioners will not tolerate the mistakes and missteps that have dogged the board ever since Primary Day.

Gonzalez, a Democrat from the Bronx, was chosen for the position in August, although he has worked at the BOE for 23 years.

Asked by NY1 before the BOE meeting what he was expecting, Gonzalez said he did not know and would not know as soon as the station did. He has not made subsequent comment on being fired.

The BOE has not had a stellar image for some time, but its performance over the past few months has yielded some particularly harsh criticism.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg called this year’s Primary Day a “royal screw-up” for the BOE. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli released a scathing report last week detailing the mistakes.

The BOE has also come under fire for printing misleading instructions on paper ballots. It has been criticized for creating a ballot that appears specifically designed to hinder a candidate in a Queens City Council race. The city Department of Investigation is currently looking at that incident.

BOE officials are assuring New Yorkers today that they are trying to make voting on Election Day a smoother process.

The mayor criticized Gonzalez personally in April, after amateur video caught the former BOE director breaking a city law by smoking at his desk.

No replacement has yet been named for Gonzalez, although a source says the likely interim director will be BOE administrator Pamela Perkins, who is the most senior Democrat on the board and the wife of State Senator Bill Perkins.

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(Source: NY1)