New York state law lets two qualified parties jointly nominate the same person. The law also allows a qualified party and an unqualified party to jointly nominate the same person. If that happens, the candidate’s name is listed on the ballot twice. But if someone is nominated by two unqualified parties, his or her name is only listed once.
Randy Credico has been nominated for U.S. Senate, full term, by both the Libertarian Party, and the Anti-Prohibition Party. But the State Board of Elections has told him his name can be listed only once on the ballot, and that he must choose one line. He expects to file a lawsuit to be appear twice. In 1971, a 3-judge U.S. District Court said that a former law, forbidding an unqualified party and a qualified party from jointly nominating the same person, for most offices, was unconstitutional. That case was United Ossining Party v Hayduk. The logic of that decision should help Credico.
Especially telling is that many prominent New York major party nominees have been nominated by three qualified parties, so their names appear three times on the ballot. For instance, Andrew Cuomo is listed three times as a gubernatorial nominee: as a Democrat, a Working Families nominee, and an Independence Party nominee.
For the MORON court — What party hack has appeared the most times on the MORON NY ballots in an election ???
Any candidates named Aardvark ???
This is just another way that New York Election Law is written to provide permanent advantages to the two major parties. This sort of thing happened to me many years ago when I was nominated by two ballot status parties and I gathered enough signatures for my own independent line. The Board of Elections told me I couldn’t have three lines on the ballot, and that I would have to combine the independent line with one of the two ballot status lines. All this happened while Democrats and Republicans lined up three and even four ballot lines without restriction! Good luck, Randy!
What is/was the United Ossining Party? A local only party? The only information I could find was an obituary…
Yes, it was a local party in Ossining.
@ #1 – as far as I can tell, 4 times is the most listings for a candidate on a New York ballot.
It used to be that the various qualified parties would all back the same candidates for Judge, so a nominee would appear on the Republican line, the Democrat line, the Liberal line and the Conservative line.
In 1937 the LaGuardia for Mayor ticket was on the ballot four times, as nominees of the Republican and American Labor Parties, both qualified, and of the City Fusion and Progressive Parties, both requiring petitions.
Kenneth Schaeffer declined the Working Families Party nomination? That’s who is on their petition filed with the NYSBOE after Cuomo indicated he didn’t want the WFP nomination.
sziemba, What normally happens is that a minor party nominates an attorney as a placeholder and then after the primary the attorney is nominated for a Supreme Court (trial court in NY) judgeship on the minor party line, creating a vacancy filled with the candidate they really want. I assume that happened here.