The Independent View: Independent Manhattan Lawyer Files Class Action Suit After He Was Blocked From Voting In NY Primary

Mark Warren Moody, in a class action suit, wants the current voter eligibility regulations for Primaries tossed out after he lost a chance to pull the lever in New York's April 19 Presidential Primary. Moody, a registered independent, was blocked from voting in the Democratic and Republican contests.

In New York State, the party-switching deadline for the April Primary was Oct. 9, 2015, more than six months earlier. Registered Democrats and Republicans are the only ones eligible to vote in their Party's Primaries, with no crossing of party lines permitted. Independents can't vote at all.

Moody charges that was an unnecessary impediment and contends his lawsuit will make election law great again. "Requiring New Yorkers to choose party affiliation at any point in advance of casting a vote in any primary election for public office violates the New York State Constitution," he charged Wednesday in his 10-page Manhattan Supreme Court filing.

He wants the court to declare the current voting laws unconstitutional and to withhold certification of the Primary results.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron has a hearing scheduled on Moody's request at noon today.

Board of Election lawyers declined comment, but Douglas Kellner, the Democratic Co-Chair of the State Election Board, said Moody will have a tough time getting the court to rule his way.

The State's highest court and the U.S. Supreme Court have issued several decisions in recent decades which support the notion that the Legislature has the right to adopt deadlines and make rules for insuring fair elections.

Kellner said the October deadline for changing party enrollment dates to 1890 when the State took over running elections but acknowledged the right of political parties to choose their own candidates.

Voters then had to register to vote every year in mid-October and when they did that, they also had to enroll in a political party by filing a paper enrollment form. That process changed decades later when the state adopted a more permanent system for voter registration and party enrollment, but did not change the re-enrollment process.