This is indefensible. The Board of Elections should be focussing all its attention, money and energy on getting the elections right, instead of suppressing votes. Our elections were severely threatened this year even before Covid19. (Remember the Mueller report “They (the Russians) are doing it as we sit here”?) Now the new procedures required by the pandemic, including expanded absentee voting, should command the complete attention of the NYS Board of Elections. How are we going to have safe and reliable elections this year given inadequate funding? What if Trump shuts down the USPS? How are people going to have confidence that an election was free and fair? How is democracy itself going to survive this crisis? Seeking to cancel a primary and deny voters any chance to vote is a devastating signal from the NYS Board of Elections that they don’t take the sacred right to vote seriously.
Allegra Dengler
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/democrats-new-york-state-board-elections-appeal-primary
Dems On NY Board Of Elections Appeal Decision Reinstating Presidential Primary
By Kate Riga
May 7, 2020 10:36 a.m.
Democrats on the New York Board of Elections on Wednesday appealed a federal judge’s ruling to reinstate the state’s presidential primary
Letitia James, the New York attorney general, submitted the appeal on behalf of board commissioner Andrew Spano and other members in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District of New York orderedthe presidential primary back on after the BOE cancelled it in late April.
She also ordered qualifying candidates who had suspended their campaigns be added back onto the ballot — the board had removed all but presumptive nominee Joe Biden after getting the power to do so in a provision of the state budget.
“If all but one of the presidential candidates are removed from the ballot and the primary is not held, Delegate Plaintiffs will be deprived of the opportunity to compete for delegate slots and shape the course of events at the Convention, and voters will lose the chance to express their support for delegates who share their views,” she wrote.
She acknowledged the health risk stemming from the coronavirus: one of the reasons the BOE cancelled the election was to free up several New York counties from having to conduct elections amid the pandemic. Only those that had down-ballot races would still have to hold them.
However, Torres found that cancelling the presidential primary would only mitigate the health risks to a “limited extent,” while greatly disenfranchising voters and former candidates.
Among the defendants on the lawsuit was former candidate Andrew Yang, who wrote on Twitter after the ruling that he hoped the BOE would have a “newfound appreciation for their role in safeguarding our democracy.”
The primary, if it happens, is scheduled for June 23.