By Jeff Wice, Alexis Marking & Jarret Berg
This week: Hearing held in Mount Pleasant VRA Case, Election Law Bills Advance in Albany, Census 2030 Bill Introduced in Assembly, Register Now for April 1 N.Y.C. Census Conference, The Ups & Downs of N.Y.’s Lieutenant Governors
N.Y. STATE VOTING RIGHTS ACT
Westchester County: Serratto et al. v. Town of Mount Pleasant
On Thursday, oral arguments were made by the parties for summary judgment. No court decision on the matter has been released yet.
Election Law Bills Advance in Albany
Last week, both houses of the State Legislature held committee meetings to consider and advance changes to state election law.
In the Senate, lawmakers advanced five proposals, including two voter protection bills that reduce voter confusion by improving the quality and clarity of information voters receive from the board of elections. S2543 (Myrie) requires providing voters with information about the candidates on the ballot and more notice regarding the dates of upcoming elections. The bill directs the state board of elections to develop a voting guide, akin to what is provided to City residents by the New York City Campaign Finance Board’s NYC Votes program. This would permit candidates to submit a sworn statement containing biographical information, along with answers to a set of issue-based questions to be developed by the state board of elections. The guide would then be emailed and mailed to voters and published online. In addition, the State Board would be required to send two postcard mailers to all voting households during the two weeks before a primary or general election day, while TV and radio stations would inform their audiences about upcoming contests during each of the 10 days leading up to election day. S5183 (Jackson) adds a prominent instruction to absentee ballot envelopes reminding voters that they need to sign the affirmation before returning the ballot. If enacted, this could reduce the quantity of ballots from legitimate voters that either need to be corrected via the ‘opportunity to cure‘ process, or summarily disqualified.
Other proposals advanced by the Senate include S2541 (Myrie), an integrity and transparency safeguard intended to ensure the accuracy of election results by making the ballot images and the ‘cast vote record’ (ie, how the ballot was interpreted by the scanner) available to the public and campaigns in the wake of a close contest. S5142 (Myrie) would exempt income earned by poll workers from their federally adjusted gross income at the state level or in factoring into state benefits. Finally, the Senate’s new Election Committee Chair Kristen Gonzalez advanced a bill (S5101) to cut a weekend of early voting from upcoming April Special Elections, which coincide with Easter Sunday and the end of Passover, requiring administrators to make up the lost hours on the remaining early voting days.
In the Assembly, Election Law Chair Latrice Walker also advanced this bill last week (A5834). A similar adjustment was made during the 2024 Presidential Primary to account for Easter Sunday and the proposal is now awaiting passage by each chamber. As lawmakers continue to grapple with how best to right-size early voting access for different election events, Democrats in each house have introduced a bill to prohibit voting on federal holidays that occur during early voting (e.g. Juneteenth), despite policy in the existing law (EL § 8-600(4)(c)) that explicitly treats holidays like weekend voting days—ie, requiring robust access when voters may have more time to cast a ballot. Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery, is always an early voting day in New York as the annual primary occurs on the fourth Tuesday in June. Although Early Voting remains popular with voters, lawmakers in New York and across the country are weighing various changes that would curtail access if enacted.
The Assembly also advanced a bill A1416 (Rosenthal) to inform voters that their districts may have changed as a result of the redistricting process that follows the decennial U.S. Census. Finally, the Assembly’s Election Law committee advanced legislation A1993 (Colton), to increase poll worker pay. The bill now awaits consideration by the Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance.
CENSUS
Comprehensive Census 2030 Bill Introduced in the Assembly
New legislation ( A5864) has been introduced by Assembly Members Michaelle Solages (D- Nassau) and Landon Dais (D-Bronx) to provide New York with a comprehensive state-supported Census 2030 initiative. The legislation would 1. create an office of state census assistance through the Secretary of State’s office; 2. establish a 30 member New York Counts Commission; and 3. authorize a state census education and outreach grant program for non-profit, community-based, and academic organizations.
The legislation creates a census infrastructure that would rely on experienced state advocates (or “census warriors”) outside state government to organize and undertake major efforts to combat undercounting, especially in “hard to count” communities. The New York Counts Commission would be comprised of several state officials and 15 representatives from the state’s non-profit, community action, philanthropic, and academic organizations.
The state provided a first time ever $2 million census effort in 2010 that funded 31 local non-profit organizations. For the 2020 census cycle, the state legislature authorized approximately $30 million for census support but only allocated about $7 million to counties to share with non-profit organizations. A complete count commission established by the Governor before 2020 produced a report after a series of hearings, but the COVID epidemic prevented the state from an active census effort. The state’s past experiences supporting census efforts demonstrate need to begin preparing for the 2030 census now.
As the state is now projected to lose at least two congressional district after the 2030 census (and possibly more losses depending on how non-citizens are counted in the census and treated by the new federal administration’s policies), the new legislation addresses the need for the state to begin early and to act comprehensively to reach hard-to-count communities, educate the public about all aspects of the census and why it’s so important to everyday lives, and build a strong infrastructure well before the 2030 census gets underway.
A counterpart bill is expected to be introduced in the Senate shortly and efforts are underway to obtain funding in the new state budget to kick off the program.
Register Now for the April 1st N.Y.C. Census 2030 Conference
New York City activists can register now for a conference focused on organizing for the 2030 Decennial Census. The event will be held at New York Law School on Tuesday, April 1st from 9:00 AM to Noon. Organizers include New York City Council Member Julie Menin (who directed N.Y.C.’s 2020 census effort), the N.Y.C. Central Labor Council, and the N.Y. Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute. Register here: https://nyls.wufoo.com/forms/q19nfln10ghm3va/
STATE GOVERNMENT
New York’s Lieutenant Governors: The Ups & Downs
New York’s Lieutenant Governor is a constitutional office tasked with three basic responsibilities: preside over the Senate, serve as acting governor when the governor is out of state, and to succeed the governor if the current governor leaves office permanently. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor run separately in the Spring primary but together in the November general election,
Recent Lieutenant Governors have had a checkered past with their Governors. In 1933, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Lieutenant Governor Herbert Lehman stepped up to become Governor after Roosevelt went to the White House. Malcolm Wilson became Governor after Nelson Rockefeller went to Washington to become Vice President.
It hasn’t been as smooth in recent years.
1978: Governor Hugh Carey’s Lt. Governor Mary Anne Krupsak decided to run against Carey in the primary after an unhappy tenure in the number two position. She lost to the incumbent Governor overwhelmingly. Interestingly, Carey originally sought to run with Mario Cuomo as Lt. Governor. Cuomo lost the 1974 to Krupsak who went on to win with Carey against GOP incumbent Wilson.
1984: Lt. Governor Al Del Bello resigned, reasoning that he was bored in office after Governor Mario Cuomo did not give him enough work to do.
1998: After a lingering fallout, Gov. George Pataki dropped Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey Ross from the ticket, instead running with Judge Mary Donohue (who went on to serve two terms with Pataki).
2008: After Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned after a scandal, David Paterson moved up to succeed him. Because there was no provision in law to replace a Lt. Governor, Senate leaders became acting Lt. Governor. Eventually, Pateraon appointed Richard Ravitch, an elder statesman of New York government to fill the Lt. Governor’ office. The State Court of Appeals let the appointment stand after Senate Republicans balked and took the appointment to court.
2021: After the resignation of Governor Andrew Cuomo, Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul replaced Cuomo. Hochul filled the vacancy with Senator Brian Benjamin who went on to resign a year later following corruption charges. Hudson Valley Congressman Antonio Delgado then replaced Benjamin. Hochul and Benjamin won re-election in 2024 on the same ticket.
2025: As we now know, current Lt. Governor Delgado announced he will not run again with Governor Hochul in 2026. We await the next chapter.
INSTITUTE RESOURCES
The New York Elections, Census and Redistricting Institute has archived many resources for the public to view on our Digital Commons Page.
Our Redistricting Resources page contains resources on the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act. You can access the page
here: https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/redistricting_resources/
Archived Updates can be accessed
here: https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/redistricting_roundtable_updates/
Please share this weekly update with your colleagues. To be added to the mailing list, please contact Jeffrey.wice@nyls.edu
The N.Y. Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute is supported by grants from the New York Community Trust, New York Census Equity Fund and the New York City Council. This report was prepared by Jeff Wice, Alexis Marking & Jarret Berg.