Gov. Kathy Hochul signs NY vote-by-mail law — and top GOP members immediately sue
New law passed by Gov. Kathy Hochul approved a new law Wednesday that will allow New Yorkers to vote by mail in 2024 instead of in person. But the Republican Party sued to stop it.
The state Board of Elections will be required to create a program that allows all registered voters to vote by mail early in advance of an elections.
The election officials will provide the mail ballots and return envelopes postage-paid to voters who request them up to 10 days before the election.
The GOP filed a suit to overturn the measure. They claimed that it left elections open to fraud, and did not meet constitutional requirements.
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“Kathy Hochul, along with extreme New York Democrats, are trying to destroy the integrity of New York’s elections. . . “As a New Yorker, I’m proud to lead this coalition and defend the basic integrity of elections on behalf of New Yorkers,” said Elise Stefanik from upstate, who is the House Republican Policy Chairwoman and the lead plaintiff in this case.
The lawsuit was filed at Albany State Supreme Court. Other plaintiffs included the Republican National Committee and the NYS Republican Party, as well as Rep. Nicole Malliotakis.
Voting by mail, also known as “absentee votes,” was previously only available to voters with disabilities, who were too sick to go to the polls or who lived out of town.
The lawsuit alleges that the Mail-Voting Law is in violation of the New York State Constitution, which requires voters to vote in person in their designated polling place in every election unless they are unable to do this because they have been absent from their city or county for the entire election period, or because they cannot appear due to illness or disability.
The GOP lawsuit states that “These are only exceptions” to the requirement that all qualified voters vote in person.
The lawsuit also claims that the Mail-Voting Law has been enacted against the will of voters who, in November 2021, rejected a constitutional amendment “authorizing no-excuse absentee ballot voting.”
“New Yorkers were given the chance to vote in 2021 on this policy and they rejected it overwhelmingly.” Ronna McDaniel, RNC Chairwoman, said that the RNC and its partners stepped in to intervene because Kathy Hochul’s New York Democrats were ignoring the results of this vote and pushing an unconstitutional assault on mail-in ballot safeguards.
All voters were able to cast their ballots via mail as a measure of emergency during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The issue of mail-in voting is now a partisan one, with Democrats supporting it and Republicans opposing it.
During the 2020 election, Donald Trump, former Republican president, made many unsubstantiated statements about how such voting led to massive fraud.
New York’s Board of Elections has had problems with the mail-in balloting.
The lawsuit was ridiculed by a sponsor of the Early Mail Voting Law.
Michael Gianaris, Deputy Senate Leader of Queens State Senate (D), said: “It’s not surprising that this new law will be opposed by the usual suspects – Trump loyalists, and insurrection advocates.”
We will continue to make voting and choosing a government easier.
Gianaris said that the law was legal, because it created a new procedure with the State Board of Elections for early voting via mail and does not violate constitution.
The law will take effect on 1 January 2024, just in time for elections.
Hochul, perhaps anticipating litigation at a press conference on Wednesday, slammed Republicans who conducted voter suppression campaigns in all 50 states “under the pretext of maintaining election integrity.”
“They are assuming that certain communities will vote in an inappropriate way when it is simply a means to suppress votes that they know won’t be with them.” Hochul stated that he was not being cynical but rather stating the facts.
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