Although New York state is famous for allowing fusion, the state does have one limitation. Except for Governor and state legislature, if an unqualified party petitions for a particular candidate who is also the nominee of one or several qualified parties, the unqualified party doesn’t get a separate space on the ballot for its nominee. Instead the name of the unqualified party is added to the same spot on the ballot that is being used by one of the qualified parties.
The Upstate Jobs Party, which is not a qualified party, sued in August to overturn that law, but on September 3 the Onondaga County Supreme Court upheld the law, and on September 26 the Appellate Division agreed with the lower court.
In the State Supreme Court (which is the lower court), the case was Upstate Jobs Party v Czarny 7058/2019. In the Appellate Division it is 19-01633.
The lawsuit concerned the November 2019 race for County Executive of Onondaga County. There are two candidates. Candidate John Ryan McMahon, one of the plaintiffs, is the nominee of the Republican, Conservative, Libertarian, Independence, and Upstate Jobs Party. His name will be on the ballot four times. If he had won the lawsuit, his name would have been on the ballot five times. But because he lost the lawsuit, the space on the ballot for the Independence Party nomination will also carry the name of the Upstate Jobs Party.
Independence Party activists were part of the lawsuit, and they objected to having their space on the ballot combined with the Upstate Jobs space. One voter-plaintiff said she is an Independence Party supporter, but she doesn’t like the Upstate Jobs Party, so that she couldn’t in good conscience vote for McMahon because her vote would then appear to be supporting the Upstate Jobs Party as well. Here is the Supreme Court seven-page opinion. Thanks to Michael Thompson for the link.
One more reason to have NO primaries — separate office nominations of INDIVIDUALS.
How would ranked choice voting work with fusion? Could a voter cast two ranking votes for the same candidate om different lines?
The sample ballots are on the Onondaga County Board of Elections website. Each political party gets a row, with an arm with the party name pointing at the party’s row. In the column for an office is listed the nominee of the party, along with a repetition of the party name in small type. Ryan McMahon is listed four times.
http://ongov.net/elections/documents/BallotID01.pdf
In New York, independent (petition) candidates may include a “party” name. Ordinarily this would be an additional row. But New York restricts candidates with four or more party lines from having additional independent body lines. So in that case the nominstion by Upstate Jobs is placed on the lowest ranked party line that nominated him. So on the Independence Party line it reads INDEPENDENCE UPSTATE JOBS (on two lines of text).
Ironically there is an independent body nomination for District Attorney that does get its own line. Chuck Keller is nominated by the Democratic, Working Fasmilies, and Libertarian parties, Gary Lavine is nominated by the Conservative and Independence parties. William Fitzpatrick is nominated by the Republican party and the Justice For All independent body. Since he only has one other party nomination, Justice For All does get its own line and finger.
See the County Council At-Large race for an example of why New York is a state of con-fusion. It is a two-seat position and the two candidates selected may be from the same column. In some cases, an individual candidate may appear in different columns, or a voter may treat the two columns as separate races.
If New York adopted an office block ballot it would be less con-fusing.