On March 3, the New York legislature passed S3500/A5698, a bill to expand the time between the Governor’s proclamation for a special election, and the date of that special election. The old law said the election had to be held between 30 and 40 days after the Governor proclaimed the special election. The bill says that the time span is between 70 and 80 days.
Unfortunately, the bill does not expand the petitioning period for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties. In special elections, they continue to face a 10-day petitioning window.
This is the very definition of “tinkering around the edges of reform”, and that is the main reason why we continue to call for a Constitutional Convention in New York. Then we could drop the two thick volumes of New York State Election Law in the recycling bin and start over.
As an example of how bad NY board of election is, when we switched to optical scanners, they took the old law, changed its title, and left in laws that were only relevant to the old mechanical lever system.
When did the EVIL party hack robots in the NY start having UNEQUAL ballot access laws ???
i.e. What State had the FIRST UNEQUAL ballot access laws ???
— a mere 120 plus years ago ???