• 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.

Politico Pro
By Bill Mahoney
April 8, 2024

But upstarts of every party say one thing hasn't gotten any easier: actually getting on the ballot to run for office.

"I hate to use the word 'rigged,' because that's the word Trump uses," said Democrat Nate McMurray, who's vying for a Buffalo-area congressional seat. But, he added, "It's a complete rigged show."

McMurray, as well as every other candidate for Congress, the state Senate, Assembly, and various local offices on the ballot this year, needed to submit petitions last week.

For most candidates, that's a bit earlier than the traditional timing. The recent consolidation of primaries in June means that petition-gathering season now falls in the middle of upstate's elongated winter.

And for a lot of candidates, the rules for gathering these petitions haven't gotten easier than from the days they were described as "the most onerous" in the country. In fact, they've gotten even more difficult for some.

Rules pushed through by ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2019 significantly increased the thresholds for minor parties to keep their ballot status. The number of signatures needed to regain it tripled — they now need to collect 45,000 in just 42 days to earn a spot back on the statewide ballot.

The Green and Libertarian candidates failed to make the 2022 gubernatorial election thanks to the rules, and it wound up being the first year since 1946 in which only two candidates appeared on the ballot. Two-candidate races might soon become more of the norm rather than the exception.

"This is something that limits democratic choice," said state Green Party co-chair Peter LeVenia, whose party has backed Jill Stein in this year's presidential contest.

"The Democrats like to talk very big about voting rights, but they haven't done anything about including independent candidates in this. And we think that suppressing voter choice is a form of voter suppression."

Meanwhile, the petitioning rules for major party candidates haven't gotten any easier, and there's no sign state lawmakers are looking to tackle another round of reforms.

Candidates who aren't backed by at least 25 percent of their state party's convention but want to run in a primary needed to collect 15,000 signatures from Feb. 27 through April 4.

"It's arbitrary," Republican John Tabacco said of the number.

Tabacco is working with celebrity fitness trainer Cara Castronuova, who has filed a lawsuit challenging the number as she plans to primary GOP pick Mike Sapraicone for the party's nod to challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

"The chairman of the New York State Republican Party has to sign one piece of paper which gives Mike Sapraicone a golden ticket to the ballot," Tabacco said. "And what we think is unfair is that we have to be raising money from the public and asking them to invest to help us with printing costs and other stuff."

He argued that the rules are particularly unfair for GOP upstarts: "You have 6 million Democrats and you have 3 million Republicans, but you have a 15,000 signature requirement for both. So it's a lot harder, especially if you live downstate, to find the Republican needles in the haystack."

The challenges have been exasperated by the 2019 consolidation of most of the state's primaries in June. That means that rather than gathering petitions in June and July, candidates now need to do so in a period centered in March — when the weather in much of the state is far from ideal for going door-to-door.

"On many days, I was more worried about keeping my guys warm than actually collecting signatures," McMurray said. "I was literally afraid they were going to get frostbite."

McMurray is hoping to primary Democrat Tim Kennedy in June for an open congressional Western New York congressional seat.

He had previously eyed running against Kennedy as an independent candidate in the special election for the district that will be held later this month. Getting on the ballot for that would have required him to gather over 3,000 signatures in two weeks in February.

The climate is more forgiving for independent presidential candidates who need to collect 45,000 signatures. But, LeVenia noted, the April and May stretch they'll need to petition features far fewer large public events than the summer months in which the party has petitioned in past years.

"We're going to hire petitioners, and I believe the Jill Stein campaign is looking to do that" as well, he said. "Because unfortunately, this is another aspect of our politics that requires a lot of cash."