NY Restriction on Absentee Voting Overturned

On August 22, the 2nd Circuit struck down a New York state election law that says that absentee voters are not permitted to vote for Party County Committee Members.

New York State Elections Officials send absentee voters a ballot that omits that office, but includes all the other offices that are on non-absentee ballots. The case is Price v New York State Board of Elections, 07-5367. The vote was 2-1. The dissenting judge thought that the law was only a trivial violation of the right to vote.

New York’s rationale for omitting Party County Committee elections from absentee ballots is that absentee ballots take longer to count than ordinary ballots, and the parties need to know very quickly who was elected to its county committees. However, since one of the co-plaintiffs in the case is the Republican Party of Albany County, that rationale wasn’t convincing to the two judges in the majority.

Michael H. Drucker
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