ALBANY, NY – Today, the New York State Senate passed a bill providing voters an opportunity to resolve challenges to their absentee ballots, fixing a process that did not give voters notice that their ballot would be rejected. The board of elections will be required to inform absentee voters by phone or email, as well as mail, of clerical errors with their ballot and give them an opportunity to fix it.

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and pro bono partner Selendy & Gay are representing the League of Women Voters of the United States, the League of Women Voters of New York, and individual client Carmelina Palmer in a lawsuit, League of Women Voters v. Kosinski, filed July 8 against the state on the same issue. The Governor will have 10 days to sign or veto the bill, and if he takes no action by that point, then the bill automatically becomes law. The bill resolves many of the issues raised in the complaint, but the case remains ongoing.

“This bill is a huge step toward safeguarding the constitutional right of voters to have their votes counted,” said Danielle Lang, co-director, voting rights and redistricting at CLC. “As New York voters increasingly rely on the state’s absentee voting system to cast their ballots, more New York voters will be at risk of disenfranchisement because the state erroneously rejects their ballot for issues that have nothing to do with their eligibility. We are glad to see legislative action to address this problem.” 

“We are pleased to see the legislature taking the initiative to correct a major flaw in New York State’s election law,” said Laura Bierman, executive director of League of Women Voters New York. “Voters deserve the right to know whether their vote will count and the opportunity to challenge attempts to invalidate their vote. This reform is long overdue and will ensure voters are more confident their ballot will be counted should they choose to vote absentee in November.”  

“It is vital that absentee ballot voters receive notice and an opportunity to cure before their ballot is cast aside, and this legislation goes a long way towards that goal,” said Selendy & Gay partner Joshua Margolin. “We are hopeful that uniform guidance for assessing absentee ballots is not far behind, as that is a critical next step to truly protect New York voters.”

In the 2018 general election, state election officials discarded more than 34,000 absentee ballots – or about 14% of all absentee ballots cast. While the precise figures are not yet available, very high rejection rates in the 2020 June primary have also been reported. This is, in part, because the state had no process for notifying voters and given them an opportunity to respond when their ballots are in danger of not being counted because of benign issues – like an omitted signature, writing the wrong date on a ballot, or a perceived discrepancy between the signature on a voter’s absentee ballot envelope and the one in their voter registration file.

The collapse of transparency in the financing of our elections has, in large part been due to weak laws and even weaker enforcement efforts. Rebuilding transparency in the financing of our elections will require enforcement of the rules currently in effect and new laws where needed. To help voters across the country understand the importance of transparency in our democracy and find effective solutions for rebuilding it, CLC launched StopSecretSpending.org.  

On StopSecretSpending.org voters can learn more about transparency and the First Amendment, solutions to stop secret spending by wealthy special interests and new regulations needed to stop foreign spending on digital ads.  

StopSecretSpending.org lays out: 

• Resources on how to have more transparency in the funding of our elections - The power of wealthy special interest money in our politics threatens our First Amendment right to have our voices heard.  For those looking for a resource on getting more transparency in state and federal elections, the site contains more detailed information on how we can stop secret spending in elections. 

• We need more transparency in elections for more accountability and less corruption. – Wealthy special interests often run elections ads that are deliberately misleading. Voters need to know who is funding these ads so they can weigh their credibility and cast an informed vote. Political ad disclaimers with innocuous sounding names like, “America for Americans,” obscure the true source of the ad’s donors and priorities. States like South Dakota require political ads to include the names of the top five contributors to the advertising’s sponsors, creating an opening for transparency, giving voters information they have a right to know about who is influencing their elections. 
   

• Transparency of sources of funding for our elections and candidates, and how that money is spent, has long been considered central to the free and transparent functioning of our democracy. Eighty-three percent of voters across partisan and demographic lines support publicly disclosing political contributions to organizations. Voters have a right to know who is trying to influence their vote, and who is working to influence our government.  
   

Visit StopSecretSpending.org 

PROVIDENCE, RI – Campaign Legal Center (CLC), the American Civil Liberties Union, and Fried Frank filed a federal lawsuit today challenging Rhode Island’s witness/notary requirements for voting by mail throughout the 2020 elections.

The case was filed on behalf of two voting rights advocacy groups – Common Cause Rhode Island and the League of Women Voters Rhode Island – and three people with disabilities who will have difficulty voting if forced to obtain two witnesses for their mail ballot. One of the plaintiffs is 88 years old and has a severe back condition, and is concerned about the heightened risk of contracting COVID-19 if she is forced to interact with visitors to witness her ballot.

“States need to make reasonable accommodations so voters can cast a ballot without unnecessary risk of contracting COVID-19,” said Jonathan Diaz, legal counsel, voting rights, at Campaign Legal Center (CLC). “There are plenty of safeguards in place to protect the security of Rhode Island elections. Forcing people with disabilities or compromised health, or their family members, to find two witnesses to cast a ballot is unreasonable. The courts need to step in so that voters can participate safely.”

“Removing the witness and notary requirement in the midst of a deadly pandemic is a common-sense solution that protects people’s health and their right to vote,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island. 

“No one should have to choose between their health and their right to vote,” said John Marion, executive director at Common Cause Rhode Island. “Unfortunately, during this public health emergency, the witnesses-or-notary requirement forces some voters to make that choice.” 

The lawsuit seeks to block provisions of a state law that requires Rhode Islanders who vote by mail to have two witnesses or a notary sign their ballot envelope, even in the midst of a highly contagious and deadly pandemic. These requirements necessitate face-to-face and hand-to-hand interaction between voters and others who pose a potentially fatal risk to the voters’ health.

As of mid-July, there have been nearly 3.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and nearly 140,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rhode Island has had 17,588 confirmed cases and 985 deaths so far. These figures almost certainly understate the real numbers of COVID-19 victims, given the limitations in testing.

The lawsuit notes that “mail voting represents the best option for most Rhode Island voters to participate safely in the 2020 elections,” but that “the voter-witness interaction required by Rhode Island’s current mail voting procedure constitutes a violation of recommended social distancing and creates a substantial risk of COVID-19 transmission.”

Former state Director of Health Michael Fine submitted an affidavit in support of this position, emphasizing the risks that people particularly susceptible to serious illness or death from COVID-19 will face if they must violate social distancing guidelines in order to vote. 

The suit points out that Rhode Island is in a small minority of states that require witness signatures for mail ballots. According to census data, more than 125,000 householders live alone in Rhode Island, and of those, over 50,000 are 65 years and older and, therefore at particular risk if they catch the disease. Multitudes more live with no more than one other adult and therefore do not have two capable witnesses within their households.

The groups are asking the court to block the state from enforcing the witness/notary requirements while COVID-19 emergency orders are in place and/or community transmission of COVID-19 is occurring, and order it to issue guidance instructing city and county election officials to count otherwise validly cast mail ballots that are missing witness signatures.