On February 10, New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver introduced A9271, to move the primary for state office from September to the fourth Tuesday in June. The bill also moves the petition deadline for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties from late August to late May. The bill is intended to go into effect immediately. If it did, in 2012 the independent petition deadline would be May 29.

Such a law would violate Anderson v Celebrezze, the 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down early petition deadlines for independent presidential candidates. Since that decision came down, all petition deadlines for independent presidential candidates that were earlier than May, except for the Texas deadline, have been declared unconstitutional. Furthermore, in six states, June petition deadlines for independent presidential candidates, or independent candidates for all office, have been struck down (Alaska, Nevada, Arizona, Kansas, South Dakota, and Massachusetts).

A9271 reduces the number of signatures needed to get on the primary ballot by 25%, but it does not lower the number of signatures to get on the general election ballot.

The chief purpose of A9271 is to eliminate the August primary for state and local office, because New York almost certainly will have a June primary for Congress, and everyone agrees it would be foolish for the state to hold one primary for Congress, and another for state and local office. However, the issue of primary dates is entirely separate from the issue of when independent candidate petitions should be due. There is no rational reason for the bill to move the independent petition deadline.