Andrew Yang sues over New York’s shutdown of presidential primary
April 28, 2020
Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, is suing the New York State Board of Elections in federal court after the state election commission effectively canceled the Democratic presidential primary there.
Yang, along with seven New Yorkers who filed to serve as Yang delegates to the Democratic National Convention, filed suit on Monday arguing that they should not be removed because they had otherwise met the requirements to be on the ballot.
The decision to remove Yang “denies voters due process and denies voters the right to vote, and therefore must be invalidated removing the authority for the Defendant to take the actions complained of herein,” reads the lawsuit, which was shared with POLITICO. The lawsuit notes that neither Yang nor the delegate candidates asked to be removed from the ballot.
The New York State Board of Elections effectively canceled the presidential primary on Monday, when the two Democratic commissioners voted to strip every candidate, except former Vice President Joe Biden, off the ballot because they were no longer actively seeking the presidency.
The move infuriated supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, in particular. Sanders, like Yang, has also suspended his campaign but publicly said he wished to remain on the ballot for the remaining primaries so he could continue to be awarded delegates to sway the national convention.
The suit filed by Yang also argued that axing the Democratic presidential primary would hurt down-ballot candidates.
The lawsuit argued that canceling the presidential primary would be “suppressing voter turnout as voters will have less incentive to vote if they cannot cast a vote for the highest office in the land, and thereby negatively impact challenger candidates” such as Jonathan Herzog, who is running a longshot primary bid against Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler in New York's 10th District. Herzog is also a party to the lawsuit.
New York’s presidential primary was originally consolidated with the state”s other federal and state primaries on June 23. For the remaining primaries, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered that any New Yorker could vote absentee (typically, New York requires a valid excuse for voters to cast an absentee ballot), and that every voter in the state be mailed an absentee-ballot request form.
Source: https://www.politico.com/
