This week: Early Voting Law Challenge Proceeds in Federal Court; State Redistricting Commission Meets to Approve Budget; Chairs Comment on New Redistricting Amendment; Wice on New Redistricting Amendment (NY Daily News); Census Watchdog Flags Risks to 2030 Census; Voting Rights Act Preclearance; Around the Nation
LITIGATION
Early Voting Law Challenge: New York Republican State Committee v. State of New York
The New York Republican State Committee filed a federal lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York last year against the state of New York and Governor Kathy Hochul challenging the state’s Even Year Election Law (EYEL). The plaintiffs include individuals from Nassau County, Suffolk County, and Orange County.
Enacted in December 2023, the EYEL moves many local elections to even-numbered years to coincide with state and federal contests. This lawsuit follows a New York Court of Appeals ruling in October 2025, which upheld the law, allowing the election schedule to shift to proceed.
Plaintiffs contend that the law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), by undermining local control and diluting the influence of certain voters. The use of Section 2 of the VRA and the court’s scrutiny of whether consolidated ballots actually create discriminatory “voter drop-off” for minority voters presents a unique legal issue.
The plaintiffs argue that the EYEL imposes significant burdens on political speech by reducing the visibility of local messages and increasing the cost of spreading those messages. Plaintiffs also assert that information and content from national elections will have residual effects on the voters’ decision-making in local races.
According to the plaintiffs, consolidating local elections into even-year cycles expands the electorate to include a larger share of voters who are less informed about local issues and more inclined to vote along partisan and racial lines. In one of their causes of action, plaintiffs further allege that the interaction of EYEL and the continuing effects of discrimination on Black New Yorkers will result in diminished opportunities for these voters to participate meaningfully in the political process and to election representatives of their choice.
Plaintiffs are asking the court to block the law and let local governments opt out.
On June 10th, the State filed its motion to dismiss. The State argues to dismiss on procedural grounds, including standing and failure to state a plausible voting rights claim.
In its analysis of the Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee’s factors, the State argues that the plaintiff’s allegations fail to show how the existence of racially polarized voting is relevant to the court’s analysis. Also, the EYEL reflects New York’s compelling interest in increasing voter turnout and reducing voter confusion.
Further, the State argues that the plaintiffs fail to allege any of the traditional or updated Gingles preconditions under the new Louisiana v. Callais precedent.
On June 10, the plaintiffs filed their brief in opposition to the State’s motion to dismiss. On the issue of standing, the plaintiffs argue that at this stage, the legal standard for standing is not to prove their injuries but rather plead them. Also, the party plaintiffs argue they have direct organizational standing because the EYEL materially impairs core electoral activities.
Further, the candidate plaintiffs argue they allege concrete and particularized injuries in their amended complaint. Specifically, the candidates each stood for town and county level offices in November 2025 and the EYEL would alter the competitive conditions in which each of them will have to campaign.
Further, plaintiffs argue they state a valid First Amendment claim because they assert that the EYEL imposes structural, asymmetric burdens on political speech and association. The plaintiffs also argue that EYEL restructures the electoral architecture in a way that subordinates local political speech to dominate federal and statewide contests.
On June 17, the State filed its reply in support of their motion to dismiss.
If the federal court agrees with the state’s arguments, the local boards and town positions will share the electoral stage with federal campaigns. However, if the plaintiffs succeed, then local government will likely be granted the right to “opt-out” and maintain odd-year elections.
Oral arguments on the State’s motion to dismiss were held on June 18th.
REDISTRICTING
State Redistricting Commission Meets in Albany To Approve Budget; Chairs Comment on Constitutional Amendment
The state’s “Independent” Redistricting Commission met last Tuesday to approve the commission’s $953,133 budget for the new fiscal year and to hear a presentation by Co-Executive Directors Karen Blatt and Douglas Breakell on population demographics. While the commissioners didn’t discuss the pending constitutional amendment that would limit the commission’s powers to analyzing data, holding hearings, and submitting one set of maps to the legislature, the chair and vice chair did comment to reporters afterwards.
Democratic Chair Ken Jenkins, who is also the Westchester County executive, indicated that he would “wait and see” more about how the amendment is structured and whether he would support it. He also kept the door open to the Democratic legislative leaders desire to fight back against President Trump’s unprecedented effort to redraw congressional districts across the country and understood their concerns and desire to address the issue.
Republican Vice Chair and former Assembly GOP leader Charles Nesbitt told reporters that the commission has “worked the kinks out, so I think any changes are premature. I think anything that takes the power away from the commission takes away from the intent of the creation of the commission,” he said, adding, “The reason for our being is to have representation in our elected officials who represent the population of our state, and the fairest way to do that is through this deliberative process.”
In their presentation to the commission on population trends, Blatt and Breakell reported that:
-Based on estimates, we are seeing increases in the Hudson Valley, on Long Island, and in the Capitol area and losses in New York City.
-In the last year, Western NY, the Finger Lakes, Central NY and the North Country have seen declines.
-Rockland County has had the largest percent increase of 5.6% and Suffolk had the larges numerical increase of 20, people.
-Schoharie County had the largest percent decrease by 5.4% and Kings County had the largest numerical decrease of 82,328 people.
-Orange, Suffolk and Rockland experienced the most growth since 2020
-Kings, Queens, and the Bronx have all decreased, reversing the 2020 trend
-the Mid Hudson Valley; Long Island and NYC experienced net positive natural changes due to births and deaths, but also experienced outmigration to other states
-all regions except for the Capitol Area experienced out migration to other states
-NYC has had the highest number of births and international immigrants, but also 82% if the outmigration to other state
Wice on Redistricting Amendment in NY Daily News
On June 16th, New York Law School Professor Jeff Wice commented on the pending constitutional amendment in a New York Daily News column:
“If approved by the Legislature again in 2027 and then adopted by voters, the state constitutional amendment would reset the rules of engagement.
The amendment would permit mid-decade redistricting; end the state’s ban against partisan gerrymandering; and grant the Legislature more control over the mapping process, allowing the Legislature to step in if the IRC fails to agree on a map or if the Legislature rejects the IRC’s drafts, and allowing the Legislature to adopt new maps by a simple majority vote rather than the currently required supermajorities.
If Albany clears the amendment again next year, the final choice rests with the voters. The November 2027 vote is a long way off, and national political winds will undoubtedly shift between now and then. Public sentiment will hinge heavily on which party controls the U.S. House next year, voter satisfaction with Trump’s agenda, and the general appetite for entirely new congressional lines…”
Read the column here: https://www.nydailynews.com/2026/06/16/n-y-joins-the-u-s-redistricting-wars/
CENSUS
Census Watchdog Flags Risks to the 2030 Count
A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns that the Census Bureau, having narrowed the scope of its 2026 Census Test, may finalize important parts of the 2030 count’s design before it has evidence that those methods actually work. Released June 4, 2026, the report describes that the Bureau has reduced planned test sites from six to two and 19 planned operational activities to nine, leaving fewer opportunities to evaluate the new approaches the agency hopes to use at the end of the decade. These preparations matter far beyond the test itself, because the once-a-decade count determines how congressional seats are apportioned, how district lines are drawn, and how hundreds of billions of dollars in annual federal funding are distributed to states and communities.
The four sites the Bureau dropped from the 2026 test were Colorado Springs, Colorado; Tribal Lands within Arizona; Western North Carolina; and Western Texas. According to the report, these four sites were cut because they were not part of the Bureau’s original U.S. Postal Service pilot, leaving Huntsville, Alabama, and Spartanburg, South Carolina, as the two remaining sites. The four canceled locations included a tribal-lands site and several rural areas, which tend to be among the harder-to-count places, so their removal is likely part of why GAO flagged a loss of useful test data.
The 2026 Field Test
The 2026 Test is the first of two major field tests on the road to the 2030 count; the second is a dress rehearsal in 2028, and its purpose is to determine whether the new methods, processes, and technologies the Bureau identified in early research perform well enough to carry into the actual census. In practice, the test pairs online self-response with in-person follow-up, and the scaled-down version is built around a pilot that uses U.S. Postal Service staff to conduct that in-person counting at the two remaining sites.
Data collection for the revised two-site test runs across the spring and summer of 2026: residents at the Huntsville and Spartanburg sites are asked to respond online from May 1 through August 31, 2026, with census workers following up in person to count households that do not respond from June 1 through August 31, 2026. The Bureau has said it intends to complete the test by September 30, 2026, the close of the federal fiscal year.
The Bureau told GAO that it refocused the smaller test on two priorities: piloting the use of U.S. Postal Service workers for in-person counting and refining field infrastructure, staffing, and training at the two remaining sites in Alabama, and South Carolina. Scaling back, however, also pushed the test’s response and field-counting timelines later and cut overall hiring goals by more than 90 percent. GAO’s central concern is that, with fewer methods put to the test, the Bureau could lock in its 2030 design without knowing whether the changes improve or weaken the count, an outcome the watchdog links to potential higher costs, lower data quality, and diminished public confidence.
What the Test No Longer Covers
Of the 19 operational activities the Bureau originally planned to evaluate in the 2026 Test, 10 were fully or partially set aside. Several of the dropped items go to methods the Bureau hopes will modernize and economize the 2030 count, among them offering an online self-response option to residents of college dormitories, gauging how accurately new administrative-data modeling can count certain nonresponding households without a doorstep visit, and using the same field staff to enumerate both group quarters and ordinary housing units. Leaving these procedures untested matters because the Bureau may still rely on them in 2030 without first knowing how well they work; GAO points to a concrete precedent, noting that the agency ran into trouble submitting group-quarters data electronically during the 2020 Census, a feature for which it had reduced testing during the 2018 Test. The full set of the 10 reduced or removed activities is listed below.
Removed Entirely:
In-Office Enumeration Model Input Data
In-Office Enumeration Model Accuracy
In-Office Enumeration Model Results
New Methods for Processing Addresses Without an Identifier
Group Quarters (GQ) Internet Self-Response Option
Combined Field Operations
Multi-Operational Field Staff for Group Quarters and Housing Unit Cases
Reduced (scaled-back):
Near Real-Time Processing
Ability to Integrate Multiple Operation Processing
Segments in Near Real Time
Functionality of Near Real-Time Data Processing
Two further findings speak to how accurate the eventual census count is likely to be. The questionnaire used in the test, adapted from the American Community Survey, takes about 40 minutes to complete compared with roughly 10 minutes for the 2020 form, and GAO points to prior research indicating that longer questionnaires tend to lower response rates. At the same time, total Bureau staffing fell about 16 percent between January and October 2025, and the agency has identified mission-critical skills shortages, including in data science and cybersecurity, even as a workforce assessment meant to size up its 2030 needs sat paused and incomplete as of February 2026. A workforce that is both smaller and short on key skills, GAO cautions, could leave the Bureau without the people or expertise to run an effective enumeration.
For local governments in particular, the practical weight of these findings lies in the cost of an inaccurate count. The federal funding that supports local services, the population figures officials use for planning, and the representation a community receives all flow from census data, so quality problems at the national level land squarely on states and localities. Local jurisdictions also work directly with the census, for example, by reviewing address and boundary records and encouraging residents to respond. The GAO report does not examine that local role, but it arguably becomes more important as reduced federal testing and a smaller Bureau workforce increase the chance of errors that the national count might otherwise catch.
GAO Recommendations
GAO made two recommendations: that the Bureau research and test the activities and design features it removed from the 2026 Test before finalizing the 2030 design, and that it determine its workforce needs in time to close skills gaps, both of which the Department of Commerce accepted. Reporting on the findings, the technology outlet FedScoop noted that a companion GAO report issued the same day concluded that the Bureau’s enterprise IT modernization schedule was unreliable and that Commerce concurred with those recommendations as well. The Bureau has said that discussions about additional small-scale testing ahead of 2030 are ongoing.
N.Y. VOTING RIGHTS ACT PRECLEARANCE
N.Y. Attorney General’s Office Preclearance
1301 Westchester County Board of Elections- poll site locations- granted
1421 Orange County Board of Elections- poll site locations- preliminarily granted
All submissions can be viewed at: https://nyvra-portal.ag.ny.gov/
AROUND THE NATION
From The Redistrict Network (@RedistrictNet)
June 15: Maryland leaders are preparing for a July special session on redistricting that could send a constitutional amendment to voters in November, Senate President Bill Ferguson’s office confirmed. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
June 19: A three-judge panel heard 11th hour arguments yesterday to block Tennessee’s congressional map. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
June 19: Maryland Senate president faces primary challenge after he initially snubbed an effort to redraw the state’s congressional map. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
June 21: Georgia Republicans nix redistricting plans on first day of special session. — @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/
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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 & Michelle Davis of Redistricting Online & Jason Fierman of @RedistrictNet.