Governor Andrew Cuomo will probably set a new deadline for independent candidate petitions, and petitions for the nominees of unqualified parties, this week.  The statutory deadline had been in August until early 2019, when the legislature moved it to May.  The May deadline (even before the health crisis) was almost certainly unconstitutionally early, but no one has challenged it.

On March 29, the Governor issued Executive Order 202.13, which said the March 31 start date for such petitions is “postponed”, but in that order he did not say what the new petitioning period is.  A new order will set the dates.  It will be interesting to see if the new order also cuts the number of signatures.  On April 1, 2020, a bill was signed that raises the statewide petition from 15,000 to 45,000 signatures.  That bill did not raise the number of signatures for district or local office, though.  Thanks to Frank Morano for this news.