On May 10, U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff issued an 18-page opinion in Conservative Party v Walsh, southern district, 10 cv-6923. This is the lawsuit in which the Conservative Party of New York, the Working Families Party of New York, and the Taxpayers Party, sued to overturn a discriminatory New York state election policy on counting votes.
New York permits two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate, and generally when a candidate is nominated by two parties, he or she is listed twice on the ballot, so that a voter can vote for that candidate under either party label. Some misinformed voters invariably vote for such a candidate under both labels. New York credits this vote to the party that has the top spot on the ballot, which means, almost always, that the Democratic Party or the Republican Party gets that vote, and the smaller party does not. Judge Rakoff ruled against the state’s motion to dismiss the case.
A trial will now be held to determine if there is solution (to the problem of voters who cast a double-vote) that does not discriminate against smaller parties. The opinion has some excellent language in support of the idea that the U.S. Constitution does not permit states to discriminate against minor parties. The Brennan Center for Justice is representing the minor parties in this case. The Brennan Center did a great deal of litigation for minor parties and independent candidates in the years 2000 through 2003, but then seemed to lose interest in minor party and independent candidate election law problems. The Brennan Center has even injured minor parties in the litigation in Connecticut over discriminatory public funding, by defending the Connecticut law in court (the case is pending before the U.S Supreme Court). However, the Brennan Center did take this New York case last year, and is doing an excellent job with it.
This is very good news, and I am also happy to hear that the Brennan Center, formerly one of the good guys in pushing against undemocratic restrictions and discriminations on independents and third parties, is partially redeeming itself in this case.
Gee – can even the genius folks at the B.C. detect that —
Separate is NOT equal.
Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954
P.R. and App.V.
If the parties did jointly nominate a candidate there would be no reason to have separate party lines. I think you mean “separately” or “severally”, rather than “jointly”.
I watch all NY BOE streamed meetings and caught this very early. I was able to cut and paste the part of the meeting where this was discussed and approved and wrote one of the earlest post on my blog, The Independent View on Blogspot. As a 40+ year IT Executive, the correct solution is to reject the ballot as an overvote and allow the voter to correct the error or give the voter the option to accept the vote with a screen message on the scanner explaining who would get the vote.
I’m sorry but I disagree about the Brennan Center “redeeming” itself. This case isn’t brought by or for “third parties” in the sense of the term as we use it. Neither the Working Families Party, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dems, nor the Conservative Party, which is a clone of the Reps, is interested in helping “third parties”. The Brennan Center is helping these parties because this case presents no danger to the continued two party dominance of the current system.
I guess the rest of the country is right in assuming that New York is stupid. Each party should have it’s own candidate. If they support another party’s candidate, then they just don’t run anyone in that position and support the candidate in other ways. The candidate runs under the party label they choose and that accepts them. As stated by others, what if the R’s create 5 phony parties, their candidates could be listed 6 times on the ballot.
I think New York is a “misinformed” state. Maybe we should split New York up & give the parts to neighboring states.
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Just the SUPER-obvious —
IF the moron primaries continue – then
how about just list the A to Z parties in a box — with —
I want the candidates of the party voted for below on the next primary / general election.
A
…
M
…
Z
Z to A reverse order in half the precincts.