The Independent View: 2011 New York Election Law Bills

Thanks to Ballot Access News for this post.

On January 5, 2011, two interesting election law bills were introduced in the New York legislature. State Senator Joe Addabbo (D-Queens), chair of the Senate Elections Committee, introduced S609. It says that the names and party labels printed on ballots must be no smaller than 12 point type, and must be bold face. This bill is in response to complaints from voters that when the state switched from mechanical voting machines to paper ballots in 2010, the type was too small to be read easily.

The reason the type was so small in 2010 is that New York has another law saying the entire ballot must be on a single sheet of paper. As it was, the 2010 New York paper ballots were much larger than ballots in other states; they were 17 inches by 11 inches. It is not clear what will happen if S609 passes. Passage of S609 might prompt the state to abandon the rule that the entire ballot must be on a single sheet of paper. That, in turn, might prompt the state to give up the ballot format that uses either party columns or party rows.

Also on January 5, Assemblymember Rory Lancman (D-Queens) introduced A242. It says that candidates running in a primary must pay a $500 fee, at least seven days before the start of petitioning for primary candidates. If only one person pays the $500, then that candidate would not need to submit a petition to be on the primary ballot. The bill does not contain any provision for candidates who are unable to pay the fee. One wonders why A242 doesn’t just eliminate petitions, regardless of whether one person or multiple persons pay the fee. New York state has never had filing fees for candidates, and ever since primary elections came into existence, has required candidates running in a primary to submit petitions (except that no petitions are needed for candidates in the Republican presidential primary).

I am waiting for other changes like how will the Election Law handle overvotes when a voter picks the same candidate on two different party lines and how write-ins will count when the voter write-ins a candidate name that is also on a party line.