New York state election law says independent candidate petitions are due 77 days before the general election. See section 6-158.9 of the Election Law. Nevertheless, for 2014, the State Board of Elections has set a petition deadline for U.S. House petitions that is two weeks earlier than the statutory deadline. See the Board’s calendar here.

Therefore, the U.S. House petitions will be due August 5. Other independent petitions are due August 19. New York has no U.S. Senate election in 2014.

All of this may change, if the legislature passes any bill to move primary dates. Currently, congressional primaries in 2014 will be on June 24 but primaries for other office are in September. This is confusing and wasteful. But it is difficult for any bill to get through the legislature changing these dates, because the Assembly prefers a June primary for everything, and the Senate prefers an August primary for everything. The reason there are different primary dates now for Congress versus other office is that the federal government sued New York to force it to hold a congressional primary earlier than the statutory September date. But the federal government has no authority to tell the state when to hold its primary for non-congressional office.