A recent New York Times editorial criticized the city’s election board

Usage of "second" is correct in answer choice E?
I thought it should be secondly that's why I have discarded this choice.

My two cents

In non underlined sentence , it used " first of all"

so second is correctly used here

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A recent New York Times editorial criticized the city???s election board for,
1. first of all, failing to replace outmoded voting machines prone to breakdowns
2. second, for failing to investigate allegations of corruption involving board members.

Doesn't the 'for' in the second sentence break the parallelism. The parallelism clearly starts after 'for' since 'first of all' is placed after that.

Hello, livfcind. I think you forgot to start 1. above with the word before first of all, even though you had typed it just above: for! With it added back in, you can better appreciate the parallel construct:

1. for, first of all, failing to replace outmoded voting machines prone to breakdowns
2. second, for failing to investigate allegations of corruption involving board members

I have highlighted the part of each phrase that uses a different placement simply to bring up a point. In the first phrase, first of all is interrupting, rather than introducing, but in the second, second is introducing the phrase instead. For whatever reason grammar has come down to us the way it has, it would be unacceptable to make the two perfectly parallel by altering the second phrase, as in,

2. for, second, failing to investigate allegations of corruption involving board members

The placement of second in choice (E) above is always preferred. Meanwhile, the placement of the initial counting item, first of all, is more flexible. It could come either before or after for, but such a consideration falls outside the underlined portion of this particular question.

- Andrew

A recent New York Times editorial criticized the city’s election board for, first of all, failing to replace outmoded voting machines prone to breakdowns, and secondarily, for their failure to investigate allegations of corruption involving board members.

the demonstrative pronoun ''their'' has the following possible antecedents: machines, breakdowns. Moreover, these antecedents cannot logically perform the action of ''investigation''. Since (A), (B), (C), and (D) all have the pronoun ''their'', we can eliminate (A), (B), (C), and (D)

We are left with (E).

(E) second, for failing to - (E) introduces the right parallelism structure. hence,(E) is the right answer choice.

A recent New York Times editorial criticized the city???s election board FOR, first of all, failing to replace outmoded voting machines prone to breakdowns, and secondarily, for their failure to investigate allegations of corruption involving board members.

I thought that since "criticized the city's election board FOR, first of all," the "for" is implied/carried over to "and second"

Wouldn't any answer with for in the choice indicate "criticized the city's election board FOR, second of all, FOR" ?

Thanks in advance!