On the evening of October 16, three candidates for Mayor of New York City participated in a two-hour debate. The candidates were Andrew Cuomo, Zohran Mamdani, and Curtis Sliwa. The moderators asked about Israel and Gaza, about what the candidates order when they are at a restaurant, and what sports events they would attend if there were two competing games on the same night. They asked about what parades the candidates were attend if they were Mayor. But not a word was said about voting rights.

New York has a voting rights crisis. New York was the only state in November 2024 in which Kamala Harris and Donald Trump were on the ballot. And the man responsible for that was Andrew Cuomo, one of the three debaters.

Each of the three candidates was asked which politician they most admire. Sliwa said George Pataki, a former Republican Governor. Andrew Cuomo chose his father, Mario Cuomo, also a former New York Governor. Mamdani chose Bernie Sanders.

On October 15, seventeen states, all with Republican Attorneys General, filed am amicus brief in the Eleventh Circuit in Florida Decides Healthcare v Byrd, 25-12370. The issue is Florida’s ban on out-of-state petitioners for initiatives. The states are Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. They argue that states should be able to ban out-of-state circulators.

Nine of these states don’t even have the statewide initiative process. One wonders why they care about this issue. Of those that do have the initiative process, only North Dakota has a ban on oout-of-state circulators for initiatives.

The Arizona legislature also signed the brief.