On April 27, New York cancelled its Democratic presidential primary, even though it was set for June 23 and the state will hold primaries for office other than president that day.

There wasn’t going to be a presidential primary for any other parties in New York, because presidential primaries in New York aren’t held unless at least two candidates appear on the ballot.  Although presidential candidates other than President Trump had petitioned for the Republican primary, the other Republican candidates had been disqualified because they didn’t submit delegate candidates in every U.S. House district.  The Libertarian Party had wanted its own presidential primary, but none of the candidates who petitioned also presented slates of delegates in all districts.  See this story.  Thanks to Joe Burns for this news.

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.