This week- Nassau GOP’s New Congressional Candidate; Blakeman Sues for Matching Funds; Democratic Socialists Win Back Funds; Congressional Lawsuit on Crossover Districts Remains Unanswered; N.Y.C. Prison Voting; State Voting Rights Act Preclearance Action; Adams’ N.Y.C. Charter Commission To Meet; Around the Nation from @RedistrictNet
ELECTIONS
NY-4 Congressional Seat: Nassau County GOP Picks New Candidate
After announcing that he would not run for the congressional seat he held prior to 2025, Anthony DeEsposito declined to run again, opening a last minute substitution of Jeanine Driscoll to run against incumbent Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen. Driscoll currently serves as the Received of Taxes for the Town of Hempstead.
Monday, April 6 at midnight was the filing deadline for congressional candidates to submit enough signatures to the county Board of Elections for them to appear on primary ballots. If DeGrace withdraws after petitions are filed, as he did here, the decision on how to replace him on the ballot falls to a panel of five Republicans including GOP committee chairman, Joseph Cairo.
The move comes after speculation that Republicans might switch to backing former GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito in a bid to take back the seat he lost to Gillen in 2024.
Historically, waiting this late to switch in a preferred candidate for Congress is unusual, but does have precedent. In 1998, the late Rep. Thomas Manton (D-Queens) declined a nomination to run for reelection on the last day to withdraw after his petitions had been submitted. That made it possible for Queens Democrats to replace him with Joe Crowley, who went on to win the seat.
The Nassau County GOP, under election law, now has four days from DeGrace’s official declination to pick someone to fill the ballot vacancy.
LITIGATION
Blakeman v. New York State Public Campaign Financing Board
On Tuesday, March 31 the New York Public Campaign Finance Board (PCFB) voted in a 4-3 decision along party lines to deny Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman, public campaign matching funds in his race because Blakeman’s running mate, Madison County sheriff Todd Hood, did not submit the required paperwork by the deadline.
On Wednesday, April 8, Blakeman filed a suit in New York’s Albany County Supreme Court claiming it improperly disqualified him from receiving public matching funds. On Monday, April 13, the Court issued an Order to Show Cause requiring respondents (PCFB) to produce documents. Oral argument is scheduled for May 1 at 2pm at the courthouse in Albany, New York.
Campaign Finance: In The Matter of Johnson v. McManus
The Appellate Division, Third Department, ruled on April 1 that the Democratic Socialists of America can get back $212,069 from the State Board of Elections in fines that arose over a dispute concerning a special campaign fund. In its ruling, the court found that the state agency could not properly find any intent to violate state election laws.
Congressional Redistricting: A Note on Malliotakis v. Williams: The Crossover District Question the U.S. Supreme Court Left Open
On March 2, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in the challenge to New York’s 11th congressional district by granting an application to stay a state trial court order that would have required redrawing the district before state appellate review was completed. Malliotakis v. Williams (Nos. 25A914 and 25A915) concerned the configuration of a district encompassing Staten Island and parts of southern Brooklyn.
The stay preserved the 2024-enacted congressional map. Justice Alito wrote a concurring opinion and Justice Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson. The plaintiffs subsequently dropped the challenge and no litigation remains pending. However, two amicus briefs raised interesting questions.
The underlying dispute arises from a challenge to the district’s boundaries under New York’s state constitutional provisions governing electoral fairness. Plaintiffs argued that the configuration of the district diluted the voting strength of Black and Latino residents, who constitute a substantial minority population in the area. The state trial court agreed and ordered remedial relief requiring revision of the district’s boundaries.
Background
New York’s 11th Congressional District encompasses Staten Island and a portion of southern Brooklyn. In October 2025, a group of voters filed suit in the Supreme Court of New York, County of New York, alleging that the district’s boundaries violated Article III, Section 4(c)(1) of the New York Constitution by diluting the votes of Black and Latino residents, who comprise roughly 30% of Staten Island’s population. Following a four-day trial, Justice Jeffrey Pearlman ruled for the plaintiffs and ordered the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission to redraw the district as a crossover district, one in which minority voters, though numerically in the minority, can elect preferred candidates through support from majority-group voters.
The Two Competing Tests
The trial court’s liability standard was drawn from an amicus brief filed by Professors Ruth M. Greenwood and Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos of Harvard Law School. Taking no position on whether the plaintiffs satisfied it, the professors proposed a two-part test rooted in Justice Souter’s partial concurrence in LULAC v. Perry, 548 U.S. 399 (2006): a crossover district claim is cognizable where minority voters can nominate their preferred candidates in the primary of the dominant party and those candidates are typically victorious in the general election. The trial court adopted the standard but subsequently misapplied it, a fact the professors themselves noted on appeal, stating the court had “made a serious mistake” by failing to apply its own test.
The Trump administration’s amicus brief at the Supreme Court advanced a structurally different argument. Rather than engaging the professors’ liability framework directly, the government contended that any remedial crossover district order necessarily makes race the overriding factor in line-drawing, triggering strict scrutiny under Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993), and Cooper v. Harris, 581 U.S. 285 (2017). Under this view, New York’s state constitutional provision cannot, consistent with the Supremacy Clause, authorize what the Equal Protection Clause prohibits. The government further argued that no compelling interest could justify racial predominance where minority-preferred candidates had already prevailed in roughly 25% of elections despite constituting only 28.5% of the district’s population.
The Court’s Order and Its Implications
The majority issued its stay without explanation. Justice Alito, concurring, characterized the trial court’s order as “unadorned racial discrimination” and concluded that applicants were likely to succeed on the merits of their Equal Protection claim. Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, dissented on procedural grounds, arguing that the Court lacked jurisdiction to intervene before any state appellate court had ruled and that the majority’s willingness to do so would open the federal emergency docket to every state-court redistricting dispute in the country.
Notably, Sotomayor declined to defend the trial court’s merits ruling. The constitutional question of whether state law may compel the creation of crossover districts remains unresolved. Since the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their case on March 19th, the New York controversy ended. However, with Louisiana v. Callais from Louisiana awaiting decision, a more definitive answer may be forthcoming. How the Court resolves the tension between state-level vote dilution protections and federal Equal Protection constraints will have direct consequences for redistricting litigation in New York and across the country.
N.Y.C. PRISON VOTING
N.Y.C. City Council Shines a Spotlight on Voting at Rikers, but State Action Is Needed to Address “Systemic Breakdowns”; Senate to Advance Election Reform Bills that Can Help
Last week, the New York City Council Committee on Criminal Justice and Committee on Governmental Operations, State & Federal Legislation held an oversight hearing on voter access on Rikers Island. Led by Chairs Gale Brewer and Selvina Brooks-Powers, the hearing included presentations by the New York City Board of Elections and the Department of Correction (DOC), followed by advocates from the Vote in NYC Jails Coalition and the Let NY Vote Coalition. To improve transparency and cooperation around DOC’s voter access and assistance duties under NYC Charter § 1057-a, the Council has proposed two local bills.
More than 25 years ago, Local Law 29 (2000) made the DOC a participating agency for agency-based voter registration, requiring it to offer registration, provide assistance in completing forms, and transmit completed registrations to the board of elections. Generally speaking, agency-assisted voter registration is sound policy. By designating and directing a wide swath of agencies to create registration opportunities when New Yorkers interact with local government (e.g. ACS, the city clerk, community boards, departments for the aging, health and mental hygiene, and homeless services, etc.), the registration barrier can be overcome for many New Yorkers. Beyond the general requirements placed on all agencies, DOC has additional voter access responsibilities in light of its control over the freedom of the eligible detained citizens in custody. Added in 2016, the additional duties require DOC to “implement and administer a program of distribution and submission of early mail and absentee ballot applications, and subsequently received early mail or absentee ballots” for citizens in custody.
Despite these heightened requirements, current voter access at DOC facilities is largely ad hoc. For many election cycles, a dedicated New York City coalition of the willing made up of lawyers and civic volunteers from an array of critical non-profits has helped fill this void, providing support in the form of people-powered sporadic facility visits.
Rather than coordinating with the board of elections on a comprehensive, proactive annual voter access plan for the thousands of citizens in their custody, the City Council’s Committee Report notes that “DOC officials rely on volunteers and community groups” and a single staffer to get forms and ballots to and from the board of elections. The result is that there are “several points at which a ballot request or ballot is handed off or placed in the mail prior to entering NYCBOE custody” creating opportunities for an otherwise-eligible voter to be unsuccessful in voting. The Committee Report found “substantial attrition at each stage of the voting process”, including applications not processed, ballots not delivered, completed ballots not returned, and returned ballots ultimately not being counted. “This pattern indicates systemic breakdowns across multiple points in the voting process rather than isolated issues.”
Moreover, this is a glaring statewide challenge. A 2023 survey by the NYS League of Women Voters revealed that only 11 of the state’s 57 counties outside of New York City had “meaningful and effective programs”. Despite local efforts, It’s increasingly clear that overhauling the status quo must include changes to state law.
Intro No. 797 would require DOC to produce an annual report detailing compliance with its obligations under the Charter’s §1057-a provisions. If enacted, DOC would report on the number of voter registration events held, the number of completed registration forms, and the quantity of absentee ballots distributed. This would supplement the more general semi-annual reporting which tracks forms distributed, completed, and submitted from an agency.
Intro No. 786 would require DOC to implement a system for absentee voters in DOC custody to have the “opportunity to cure” certain ballot envelope defects in a timely and effective manner, a safeguard available to the general public, see EL § 9-209(3), that would otherwise void the impacted voter’s ballot. If enacted, DOC will also be tasked with helping voters in custody obtain new ballots when a previously-issued ballot envelope has a non-curable defect. DOC will also need to report data to City leaders regarding how many cure notices and affirmations were successfully delivered to voters in custody and returned to the Board of Elections, and how many ballots from those in their custody were ultimately disqualified by election officials.
In addition, members of the Vote in NYC Jails Coalition reiterated their perennial call for poll sites at Rikers. Advocates from the statewide Let NY Vote Coalition urged the City Council to adopt a resolution calling on state lawmakers to enact the Democracy During Detention Act (DDDA) before lawmakers depart Albany in early June.
Confirming the need for state action (or perhaps litigation), the head of the City Board of Elections took the legal position that the agency was already operating in accordance with state law, which purportedly limits the City Board’s obligations (and options) to processing the timely registration forms and absentee ballot requests that are filed with the board, regardless of the glaring structural barriers to access for thousands of eligible citizens detained on Rikers. This represents both a massive policy failure and a failure of imagination.
For example, under the same state laws Ulster County’s bipartisan election officials work cooperatively with their local sheriff to provide proactive, effective voter education, registration and ballot access to eligible citizens in jails ahead of elections, and have done so for several years. If enacted, the DDDA would comprehensively overhaul and modernize voter access for eligible citizens detained in jails pretrial and presumed innocent, or serving time for misdemeanor offenses. Video of the full City Council hearing is available here.
But change may be in the air. The New York State Senate Elections Committee will advance the DDDA, among other election reform bills, out of committee for the first time this Tuesday after a presentation by Let NY Vote advocates. This meeting agenda was originally scheduled for March 31st, but was postponed due to protracted budget negotiations. A full summary of the bills moving out of Senate Elections on Tuesday was published previously in this newsletter.
VOTING RIGHTS ACT
N.Y. Attorney General’s Office Preclearance
1162 Monroe County Board of Elections- poll site location- granted
1222 Onondaga County Board of Elections- poll site location- granted
1204 Putnam County Board of Elections- poll site locations- granted
1203 Onondaga County Board of Elections- poll site locations- granted
All submissions can be viewed at: https://nyvra-portal.ag.ny.gov/
N.Y.C. CHARTER REFORM
Adams’ N.Y.C. Charter Commission Attempts To Meet
The Charter Revision Commission appointed by former New York City Mayor Eric Adams last December 31 (his last day in office) plans to hold a meeting this afternoon at the Manhattan Dechert LLP law offices of former Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro. The commissioners, mostly alumni and associates of the former mayor, face an uncertain future, dependent in part on whether it will obtain city funding and support or whether it will need to rely on private sector support (and whether that is permissible). If able to meet, the commission may look into placing a ballot question before the voters to approve open non-partisan primaries. Currently, only enrolled party voters can vote in the party’s primary.
Two of former Mayor Adams’ appointees to the commission failed to sign their nomination papers, leaving the commission short of members and opening the door to Mayor Mamdani appointing his own new members.
If the commission is able to continue to meet and recommend an election law-related ballot question, the question would have to be submitted to the state Attorney General’s office (or before a state supreme court judge) for approval (pre-clearance) under the state’s new John R. Lewis New York State Voting Rights Act.
AROUND THE NATION
From The Redistrict Network (@RedistrictNet)
April 14: The Maryland legislature adjourns sine die without passing a new congressional map. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
April 15: As of April 14, 2026, more than one million early ballots have been cast statewide in the Virginia Redistricting Referendum. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
April 15: Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a proclamation moving the redistricting special session to April 28 through May 1. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
April 17: Plaintiffs challenging Mississippi’s Supreme Court districts have submitted three proposed remedial maps. Defendants will have an opportunity to respond, and a hearing will be held on April 28 in Aberdeen, Mississippi. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
April 18: Voters will head to the polls on April 21 for the Virginia Redistricting Referendum. Afterward, the VA Supreme Court will decide whether or not the referendum was conducted legally. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
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 [email protected]
The N.Y. Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute is supported by grants from the New York Community Trust, New York Census Equity Fund, the Mellon Foundation, and the New York City Council. This report was prepared by Jeff Wice, Esha Shah, Jarret Berg, Alexandria Sanatore & Jason Fierman of @RedistrictNet.