The change to ballot access laws in 2020 make gaining any high political office in New York an uphill battle. The changes came in a budget provision in the last year of the Andrew Cuomo administration increasing automatic ballot access to 2% or 130,000 votes whichever is higher in presidential and gubernatorial elections. The Green Party of New York, which gained less than 1% of the vote in 2020, subsequently has their automatic ballot access revoked, leading to the party not being on the ballot in New York for the 2024 elections.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- New York is the only state in the country where voters have only two choices on the ballot for president.

Green Party of New York Co-Chair Gloria Mattera chalks that up to a 2020 state budget provision that increased the threshold for automatic party ballot access to 2% or 130,000 votes, whichever is higher, in presidential and gubernatorial elections.

New Yorkers filling out their ballots this year will notice something unusual: there are only two presidential candidates listed. In fact, New York has the dubious distinction of being the sole state in 2024 with only two presidential candidates on the ballot.

In a time when both Democratic and Republican parties loudly decry alleged voter disenfranchisement, New York has managed to suppress every alternative party and constrain voter choice. This is a serious form of voter suppression that has received almost no political attention, and it comes at a time when 58% of Americans polled by Gallup show support for a third political party.

As Election Day approaches, New York has a rather dubious distinction. It is the only state in the country in which Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are the only presidential choices voters have listed on their ballots. Anyone wanting to choose other candidates will have to write in those names. 

10/18/24 - New York is the worst state in the nation for voter choice at a time when growing numbers of citizens are dissatisfied with the Democratic and Republican party’s candidates, according to Green Party of New York officials. 

Party leaders pointed out that New York is the only state in the nation to have just two presidential candidates on the ballot, and that in the last 40 years this has happened in only one other state, Oklahoma. Oklahoma has since eased its ballot access laws in 2012 to allow for multiple presidential candidates. 

First, our sincere thanks to all of you who helped with petitioning, whether it was out in the street collecting signatures, spreading the word on social media or sending in a donation. The Green Party of New York (GPNY) accepted the challenge of collecting 45,000 valid signatures, which meant at least 25,000 over that, to place Jill Stein on the ballot for the Green Party. We were not going to be defeated just because Cuomo and the Democratic majority State Legislature stole our ballot line by passing a change in the election law under the cover of the pandemic. 

• The party can't legitimately claim to be saving democracy while aggressively limiting voter choice

ALBANY — Democrats tell us the coming election is about saving democracy. If Joe Biden loses, the claim goes, this little experiment of ours may end.

"Whether democracy is still America's sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time," Biden said recently. "And it's what the 2024 election is all about."

• The recent consolidation of primaries in June means that petition-gathering season now falls in the middle of upstate’s elongated winter.

ALBANY, NY — Democrats have made some of the most sweeping reforms to New York’s election law in over a century since they assumed sole control of Albany in 2019. Changes like early voting, eased registration deadlines, and new rules for voting by mail have made it easier than ever to cast a vote.

• May Threaten Third Party Ballot Access in New York State

• Libertarian and Green Parties contend that a two-thirds supermajority in New York legislature and no ballot access for third parties makes it a one-party state.

The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a decision to deny the writ of certiorari petition for an appeal brought forth by the Libertarian Party of New York and the Green Party of New York, concluding their legal battle over New York State’s ballot access thresholds. The petition, which was filed on March 13, 2023, sought to challenge the increase in ballot access requirements implemented in 2020.

The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear a challenge to New York's 2020 election reform laws that raised the threshold for third political parties to appear on the ballot.

In the past, to achieve statewide ballot status, minor political parties needed to earn 50,000 votes for their candidates in the previous election. In other words, they needed 50,000 votes to qualify for the ballot every four years – rules that have been in place for decades. The law passed three years ago now requires that minor parties garner 130,000 votes or 2% of votes cast. Failure to do so would mean removal from the ballot in the next cycle. In addition, they demand that qualifications occur every two years, rather than four, at the gubernatorial and presidential elections.