On September 26, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed A8228, which lets voters switch parties as late as February of an election year. Voters often want to switch parties in order to vote in a particular party’s primary. The New York presidential primary is in April 2020 and the primary for other office is in June.

New York is still one of the most restrictive states for voter switches, but the old law was much worse. It required voters who want to vote in the 2020 primary to have switched by October 2019.