New York

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that New York must host its Democratic presidential primary on June 23. The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upheld a lower court’s decision earlier this month that canceling the primary would be unconstitutional and deprive New Yorkers of their right to vote. The state’s Board of Elections had called off the contest in late April, citing public health concerns amid the coronavirus pandemic – a move that drew swift backlash from supporters of former presidential candidates Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders, who eventually filed the lawsuit seeking to reinstate the election. “Thrilled that democracy has prevailed for the voters of New York!” Yang, also a plaintiff in the suit, tweeted. The Board of Elections, after appealing the first decision, will not seek to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, the board’s Democratic co-Chair Doug Kellner said on Tuesday.

A federal appeals court should let New York’s Democratic presidential primary proceed on June 23 over the objections of the state, a lawyer for delegates said Monday. Attorney Jeffrey Kurzon filed written arguments with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hear the case Friday as lawyers for the state seek to overturn a lower-court decision that concluded the cancellation of the presidential primary was unconstitutional. “To take the extraordinary action of cancelling an election, no doubt an election now in progress, would cause extreme harm to the belief in democracy in our country and that we are a republic,” Kurzon wrote. Last week, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan ordered the primary to take place on the same day other New York elections will occur, nullifying a decision by the Democratic members of the State’s Board of Elections to cancel the primary because of concerns about the coronavirus.

Democratic members of the state’s Board of Elections filed an appeal Wednesday of a federal judge’s reinstatement of the New York presidential primary. The appeal by board Commissioner Andrew Spano and other members comes a day after the June 23 primary was reinstated by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan, who said canceling it would be unconstitutional and deprive withdrawn presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang of proper representation at the Democratic convention. Torres said there was enough time before the primary to plan how to carry it out safely. She acknowledged that the reason it was canceled — to prevent the spread of COVID-19 — was an important state interest but said she was unconvinced it justified infringing rights. She noted that no other state had canceled its primary.

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered elections officials in New York State to hold its Democratic primary election in June and reinstate all qualifying candidates on the ballot. The ruling came after the presidential primary was canceled late last month over concerns about the coronavirus. The order, filed by Judge Analisa Torres of United States District Court, came in response to a lawsuit filed last week by the former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. He sought to undo the New York State Board of Elections’ decision in late April to cancel the June 23 contest, a move it attributed to health and safety worries and the fact that the results would not change the primary’s outcome. On Tuesday night, Douglas A. Kellner, a co-chair of the New York Board of Elections, said the board was “reviewing the decision and preparing an appeal.” And speaking on CNN, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said the presidential primary would proceed per the court’s ruling at least for the time being, but he noted the potential for an appeal. Mr. Yang said in a statement on Twitter that he was “glad that a federal judge agreed that depriving millions of New Yorkers of the right to vote was wrong,” and he urged state elections officials to safeguard democracy.

The Democratic presidential primary in New York is back on. A federal judge in Manhattan ruled late Tuesday that New York must hold the primary on June 23, contending that canceling it would be unconstitutional and take away the ability of the candidates to receive delegates for the party’s convention in August. Removing the candidates from the ballot and “canceling the presidential primary denied them the chance to run, and denied voters the right to cast ballots for their candidate and their political beliefs,” U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ruled. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of former presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang, who argued in a lawsuit April 28 that it was illegal for New York to cancel the primary. “Yes – the people of New York will be able to vote in the Democratic presidential primary,” Yang wrote on Twitter.

Lawyers for supporters of withdrawn presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang on Monday urged a judge to overrule New York state’s decision to cancel its 2020 Democratic presidential primary. The lawyers for would-be delegates including Yang argued that the state acted unconstitutionally when it made the cancellation on April 27. The Democratic members of the State’s Board of Elections voted to cancel the presidential primary even though New York still plans to hold its congressional and state-level primaries June 23. Attorney Jeffrey Kurzon, representing Yang and others, said the case was about protecting the rights of citizens to vote. Kurzon said those who brought the lawsuits “must be protected for our democracy to survive” and asked that U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres declare the decision to cancel the democratic presidential primary unconstitutional.

New York officials canceled the state’s Democratic presidential primary on Monday, prompting an immediate backlash from the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders and his legion of progressive supporters who had hoped to amass convention delegates and help shape the party’s platform in August. In making the decision against holding a primary, which had been scheduled for June 23, the Democratic chair of the New York State Board of Elections called the primary “essentially a beauty contest” that the state could ill-afford in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. The vote followed a decision this month by Mr. Sanders to suspend his presidential campaign, effectively conceding the Democratic nomination to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Sanders had expressed a desire to remain on the ballot, however, and his supporters had launched an email, phone and Twitter campaign to persuade the elections board to go forward with the primary, calling its cancellation an affront to Democracy. On Monday, his campaign released a statement, calling the decision “an outrage, a blow to American democracy” and accused the state party of having a “checkered pattern of voter disenfranchisement.”

When New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced last Saturday that he would postpone the April presidential primary, staff at the New York City Board of Elections breathed a sigh of relief. Some hoped the delay meant they could stop going into the office to protect their health and the health of people still entering them. BOE staff have paid a high price for showing up to work during the pandemic. To date, 15 people have tested positive for COVID-19 at the BOE’s main office in lower Manhattan, according to sources at the Board of Elections. Two people from the borough offices have died from the virus, with a third death that has not been officially linked to the disease.  While Board of Elections staff were not explicitly deemed essential workers under the governor’s earlier executive order calling for a PAUSE, the city BOE’s Executive Director Michael Ryan told Gothamist / WNYC that they had been given guidance by the State Board of Elections to continue operations. “We at the Board have a legal mandate to conduct our jobs. The continuity of government depends in part on some of the work that we’re doing,” Ryan said.

New York will postpone its April 28 presidential primary until June 23, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Saturday, buying time for the state to administer an election as it struggles to respond to the escalating coronavirus outbreak. “I don’t think it’s wise to be bringing a lot of people to one location to vote, a lot of people touching one doorknob, a lot of people touching one pen,” Mr. Cuomo said in a news conference. “So we are going to delay that and link it to an election that was previously scheduled on June 23.” A primary for state legislative and congressional races had already been set for June 23, and now all of the state’s primary elections will be held on the same date, he said. Ten other states, as well as Puerto Rico, have rescheduled their primary elections as the campaign calendar has been upended by the outbreak, citing guidance from health officials who have urged people to avoid gathering spots, including polling places. A handful of other states have switched to voting entirely by mail and have extended deadlines for doing so. Under rules set by the Democratic National Committee, the state risks forfeiting some delegates at the national convention for voting so late in the party’s nomination cycle.

Saying they face critical shortages of poll workers and places to vote that aren’t off-limits, the state’s county elections commissioners want the upcoming April 28 Democratic presidential primary delayed because of the spreading novel coronavirus. On Tuesday, the state Election Commissioners’ Association urged Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the state Legislature to take action as soon as possible to postpone the vote, saying deadlines for training personnel and testing voting machines ahead of the primary are approaching, and the pandemic is making it difficult to recruit poll workers. “Election boards throughout the state are risking personnel safety and health to prepare for impending elections on April 28,” the group said in a statement. “We are facing critical shortages of inspectors and polling places due to the ongoing public health crisis.” Schenectady County’s elections commissioners are having trouble getting permission to use some of the polling places they normally use, which include senior citizen centers, schools and other buildings that have been emptied as people are told to stay away to prevent virus transmission. “A lot of the locations we use say they wouldn’t be able to give us access,” said Amy Hild, Schenectady County’s Democratic election commissioner. ‘We’re having an issue with locations, and difficulty in recruiting staff to work.”

New York officials are considering plans to postpone the state’s presidential primary election in April as fears over the coronavirus outbreak grow and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cautioned against gatherings of more than 50 people. Douglas A. Kellner, co-chair of the New York State Board of Elections, confirmed on Sunday that discussions were underway about the possibility of delaying the primary from April 28 to June 23 in the interest of containing the virus’s spread, but he added that no final decision had been reached. The decision ultimately would rest with the governor and the State Legislature, he said in an interview. The discussions are underway as two states — Louisiana and Georgia — have already postponed their primaries and other states are weighing various delays or mail-in balloting measures to protect the public from exposure to the illness. Democratic Party officials in Puerto Rico, a United States territory, said they would request a postponement of their primary from March 29 to April 26. “The safety of every citizen is paramount,” the party said in a news release Sunday.