New York Ballot Access Victory

On January 27 (Friday), late in the day, U.S. District Court Judge John Gleeson declared unconstitutional the ballot access requirements for candidates seeking a place on major party primaries, for the office of Delegate to Judicial Nominating Conventions. The law required 500 signatures in each Assembly District. New York has 12 districts for electing State Supreme Court Justices, and each district contains between 9 and 24 Assembly districts (or parts of Assembly districts). Therefore, people who wanted a major party nomination for Supreme Court Justice needed to organize slates of candidates for Delegate to the nominating conventions, and then petition to get these slates on the primary ballots. To do this, they need between 4,500 valid signatures, and 12,000 valid signatures, depending on which district they are running in. Only 37 days were permitted to get these signatures. Torres v N.Y. State Bd. of Elections, 04-cv-1129.


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