A technical glitch has emerged in the formation of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Women’s Equality Party that could open the new found political organization to legal challenges if it seeks to operate in next year’s elections.
Gov. Cuomo and LG Kathy Hochul, both of whom ran on the WEP line last fall, signed the documents, which is where the trouble starts.
A spokesman for the state Board of Elections confirmed that Section 6-128, Subdivision 4 of the state Election Law requires a “majority” of the candidates who ran on a party’s line agree on the rules of that party. AG Eric Schneiderman and state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli also ran on the WEP line last year, but neither of their signatures appear on the documents on file with the board.
Spokespeople for both the AG and the comptroller confirmed that neither had signed off on the WEP’s rules and interim leadership, but declined to provide any additional information, like whether they had been formally asked to sign, or why they decided not to.
CLICK HERE to view an upstate ballot (PDF).
Schneiderman and DiNapoli were not on the WEP line.
CLICK HERE to view a New York City ballot.
Schneiderman and DiNapoli were on the ind+wep line, it is hard to determine which line you voted on. So it would be hard to determine if their signature was needed.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
9 comments:
You may be misinterpreting Election Law §6-128.4. The spokesman for the SBOE may not have understood the nuances of §6-128.4, or the question that was asked may not have been properly framed.
That section says that "[i]f there is any question or conflict relating to the rules or the rule-making body", that the rules adopted by a property authorized body that were certified by a majority of the candidates shall be deemed to be the rules. "The certificate of such candidates describing the rule-making body shall be controlling."
So my interpretation is that the interim state committee promulgated the rules, and that Governor Cuomo and Lt. Governor Hochul are certifying that the interim state committee had that authority.
Since Cuomo and Hochul aren't WEP members, they can only certify who they believe to be the party bosses of the independent body that nominated them.
If there is no question whether the rules are authoritative, then it does not matter whether the rules were only certified by two of the four 2014 WEP nominees.
If there are an alternate set of rules filed, then the SBOE would have to sort matters out. I doubt that they would have any problem doing so, unless the alternate set were certified by both the other two nominees.
Note: there may be an internal conflict in the interim WEP rules II.2.a in that the interim state committee claims to have been elected by a majority of the WEP nominees. If the other two nominees were not given an opportunity to vote, the election of the proto-interim state committee may be void. Also it appears that the WEP nominees failed to elect a Vice Chair and Treasurer.
A local political reporter, Liz Benjamin wrote she got the info from the SBOE, "requires a "majority of the candidates who ran on a party's line agree on the rule s of the party", and that would require 3 of the 4 candidates.
This is the key paragraph in Liz Benjamin's blog post:
"A spokesman for the state Board of Elections confirmed that Section 6-128, Subdivision 4 of the state Election Law requires a “majority” of the candidates who ran on a party’s line agree on the rules of that party."
(1) A spokesman for the SBOE should not be considered a legal authority.
(2) The use of "confirmed" implies that Benjamin asked the question in a manner that a spokesman could answer "that's right" with no in-depth analysis.
If there were an absolute requirement for certification by a majority, Election Law 6-128.4 could simply have used "shall be certified by a majority of the candidates".
But instead it recognizes that there could be conflicting sets of officers, and provides a way that any disputes could be resolved.
Incidentally, something that might or might not factor in is that DiNapoli and Schneiderman did not receive any votes as candidates of the WEP.
"Incidentally, something that might or might not factor in is that DiNapoli and Schneiderman did not receive any votes as candidates of the WEP."
Where did you get this info? The Board of elections only posted the combined total for ind+wep line. I voted on that line.
Here is a ballot from Chenango County
http://www.co.chenango.ny.us/elections/sample-ballots/2014-General/1013.pdf
In New York City, where I voted, the ballot showed:
Thomas P DiNapoli - Democrat, Independence Party, Women's Equality, Working Families Party
Eric T Schneiderman - Democrat, Independence Party, Women's Equality, Working Families Party
New York City uses a different ballot format, different voting equipment, then most of the state. I am still looking for the sample 2014 ballot. I did vote for Gov/Lt. Gov. on the WER line, but I do not remember if the other two candidates were also on the line.
Attachment A is the format used (presumably the Brennan Center had a real ballot if they were complaining about the format).
http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/analysis/Letter_to_NYC_BOE_102314.pdf
This is a cached version of a sample ballot, but Google converted it from PDF to HTML
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tZlfPa1_rO8J:electiongateway.com/nyc/sample_ballots/381420/10/2014G1V1_A_Style_180.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Thanks, Now that I see the ballot, I voted for those two positions on the Independence line.
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