New York state’s highest court has affirmed a law challenged by Republicans that permits residents to vote by mail up to 10 days before Election Day, with a 6-1 decision.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the New York Early Voting Act into law in September 2023.
The legislation allows voters to request a mail-in ballot from the New York State Board of Elections online and mandates that the state set up and manage an electronic system for early mail-in ballot applications.
Republicans, led by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), sued the state, arguing that the law violated the state constitution.
Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals Rowan Wilson issued the majority opinion on Aug. 20.
“Though the State Constitution contains no language that explicitly requires in-person voting, the legislative and executive branches have often proceeded as if our Constitution requires as such,” Wilson wrote.
The Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision affirming that the state Legislature has clear authority to regulate elections.
“Our Court has never been asked to determine what the Constitution requires in this regard,” Wilson wrote.
“Recently, the legislature assumed that the Constitution requires in-person voting, passing concurrent resolutions culminating in the 2021 proposed amendment to authorize mail-in voting,” he added.
“We acknowledge that the public rejected that amendment, and we take seriously both the legislature’s position in 2021 and the voters’ rejection of the proposed constitutional amendment.”
When Hochul signed the bill in 2023, Republican state Senator Mark Walczyk stated that New York voters had already indicated their opposition to mail-in voting by rejecting the No-Excuse Absentee Voting Amendment in 2021.
In his dissent, Associate Judge Michael Garcia argued that while the Legislature has broad authority to regulate elections, citizens can restrict that power through the language of the state constitution.
“For more than 200 years, the State Constitution has restrained, and been understood to restrain, that plenary power with respect to absentee voting, limiting it to certain categories of voters unable to appear in person because of absence, illness, or physical disability,” he wrote.
He pointed to the rejection of the No-Excuse Absentee Voting Amendment by New York voters, suggesting it led them to believe that future mail-in voting legislation would not be pursued.
“A review of the plain text of the provisions at issue here establishes that the People intended the Constitution to limit the legislature’s authority to make laws governing absentee voting, and that the Early Mail Voter Act, whatever its merits or flaws as policy, goes beyond those limits and is therefore unconstitutional,” he said.
Ed Cox, chair of the New York State Republican Party, issued a statement condemning the Court of Appeals’ decision, labeling it an “affront to every New Yorker.”
“This ruling is another indication of what one-party rule means for New York State,” Cox said.
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