State of Elections

William & Mary Law School | Election Law Society

New York

NYC League of Women Voters vs. Sandy & Partisanship: The Triumph of Community Over Mother Nature and the Need to End the Partisan Election Process

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by Brenden Dougherty

The October surprise for the 2012 election cycle turned out not to be a terrorist attack or an extramarital affair, but rather a devastating super-storm that flooded portions of New York City and cut out power to millions of customers.  Many wondered if the damage to the city would cripple efforts to get voters to the polls on Election Day.  However, the League of Women Voters of New York City refused to surrender to the destruction.

From now on he was to support his mother from writing an exploratory essay his earnings as an actor and performer

The League of Women Voters of the City of New York is an organization whose goal is to inform citizens about election matters and encourage citizens to vote.  On November 6, 2012, the organization pursued this mission with incredible vigor by assisting those voters affected by Hurricane Sandy.  Members set up a telephone hotline days before the election to answer questions from voters about whether their polling places would be open despite the damage from the floodwaters.  On the day prior to the election, league members answered more than 200 calls, and when the big day finally came, the League of Women Voters kept their phone hotline open from 8 in the morning until 9 at night.  Indeed, the organization was intent on ensuring that every resident in the city knew where to vote and how to get there, with particular emphasis on those without access to the Internet and those who were unable to withstand the heavy call volume coming into the Department of Elections.  As the League’s President Ashton Stewart stated on Election Day, “Our people power is minimal, but we’ve been keeping our four phone lines engaged all day, just letting people know where their nearest poll site is.”  Once the votes had been cast, the league’s work continued, with members traveling to polling locations to report the numbers to the Associated Press. [Read more…] about NYC League of Women Voters vs. Sandy & Partisanship: The Triumph of Community Over Mother Nature and the Need to End the Partisan Election Process

Is there a Religious Exception for Voter Discrimination? New York’s Hasidic Community and Community Council Elections

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Earlier this year, The New York Times published an article describing the requirements for voting for the leadership of the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council in Brooklyn. The requirements are the following:“Jewish and religiously observant residents of Crown Heights, married, previously married or at least 30 years old, male.” The article raises the question of constitutionality of the gender discrimination in this policy, which I would like to explore further in this blog post.

The Crown Heights Jewish Community Council is described as a “social service agency” and receives annually about $2 million in government grants. Their service to the community includes distribution of food stamps and housing subsidies. While the council includes the word “Jewish” in its name and requires that voters for its leadership are “Jewish and religiously observant,” it is not a religious organization. The council’s reasons for not allowing women to vote for its leadership have ranged from female modesty to “marital tranquility”, to claiming that the discrimination against women is in fact a “one couple/one vote” rule. This specific community council has changed its policy since the publication of the article, but this is just one Hasidic community in a state that boasts the largest population outside of Israel. Hasidic Jewish communities can be found throughout Brooklyn and the “Borsht Belt” in upstate New York. This issue may come up again as more Hasidic women challenge policies that leave them disenfranchised in their own communities. [Read more…] about Is there a Religious Exception for Voter Discrimination? New York’s Hasidic Community and Community Council Elections

New York’s clock continues to count down

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by Alex Custin

New York’s redistricting attempts continue to show little progress towards developing a plan that both the legislature and the governor will approve.  The legislature continues to refuse to pass the redistricting commission bill that the governor proposed earlier this year.  The governor in turn has continued to state that he will veto any redistricting plan that is not formed through an independent process.  The governor has reminded the legislature that if they continue to insist upon using partisan methods to develop the redistricting plan, the courts will end up drawing the lines, and no one can truly predict what will happen if the courts get involved because of all of the changes that have to take place.

Another issue continues to add pressure on the government to develop a plan soon: the need to hold the primary early enough to be able to send absentee ballots to overseas servicemen.  New York managed to get an exemption from this requirement in 2010 – it did not have to worry about it this year because it only applies to federal elections – but its chances of getting another exemption in 2012 appear to be quite slim.  This issue adds even more complexity to New York’s election process because it appears that the government plans on keeping the current date for state and local primaries, which would mean New York would have presidential primaries in April, congressional primaries sometime around August, and state and local primaries in September.  There was some consideration given to changing the state and local primaries to match the date of the congressional ones, but in an unsurprising result, the parties could not agree on a date to change it to.  This is kind of interesting when you think about what it will mean for the congressional primaries. Perhaps the date will be set by the judge deciding New York’s suit requesting another exemption to the timeline for military absentee ballots. [Read more…] about New York’s clock continues to count down

Citizens United: Does it affect New York elections?

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by Andrew Bruskin

The following is a follow-up to an original article written in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

According to several New York publications, not much has changed since this decision was handed down. The Campaign Finance Board states, “NYC already bans direct contributions to candidates and employs strong requirements for disclosure in order to preserve transparency and accountability. As it has for more than 20 years, New York City’s public matching funds program provides candidates with public funds that give small donors a voice to counterbalance the impact of special interest spending.” The New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) states that this decision “will not have too much affect in Albany” anyway. “It is like the Wild Wild west right now anyway,” notes Blair Horner, the legislative director of the group. He further states that New York does not have restrictions on corporate campaign finance, so this ruling is minimal when it comes to New York’s electoral process. Corporations can spend-spend-spend away, with few McCain-Feingold restrictions.

Evan Johnston of the Examiner completely disagrees with the court’s ruling and with both NYPIRG and the New York Campaign Finance Board. Mr. Johnston says, “the ruling, which was to remove any restrictions a corporation might have otherwise run into in paying for virtually unlimited advertising time to sink a candidate who might propose something like term limits, or campaign finance reform, or any number of a host of public policy options that are remotely hostile to corporate interests. That is what New Yorkers need to be concerned about.” [Read more…] about Citizens United: Does it affect New York elections?

NY (redistricting): New York on the clock to redistrict

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by Alex Custin

New York faces a few interesting challenges in this round of redistricting. First, a law passed last year now requires inmates to be counted in the district they’re from rather than where they’re imprisoned. Second, New York is losing two congressional districts. Third, the governor has threatened to veto any redistricting plan that’s a political gerrymander. Finally, the requirement that military absentee ballots be sent out 45 days before the election means that New York has to hold its primaries earlier than usual, and the district lines have to be determined before then. The combination of these challenges means that New York has to redraw more district lines than it otherwise would and that it has to get its act together soon in order to have a plan in time.

The first challenge will affect both districts where prisons are located and districts from which the inmates came. Since population is the usual number used in order to draw district lines, districts with prisons will have to increase in size to remain equally populated and the districts that produce large numbers of inmates will have to shrink. [Read more…] about NY (redistricting): New York on the clock to redistrict