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Rep. Elise Stefanik (Photo by Joshua Roberts – Pool/Getty Images)
As the 2024 election nears ever closer, a New York appellate court on Thursday rejected an appeal brought by a group of Republicans, headlined by congressional Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., in a lawsuit filed against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul over legislation known as the Early Mail Voter Act.
In the lawsuit filed last September, Stefanik, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., and other Republican congressional representatives, state assembly members, registered voters, and the Republican National Committee collectively argued that the law Hochul signed into law was unconstitutional under New York State’s Constitution, bringing to mind similar challenges that preceded the 2020 election.
The legislation, in summary, “Establishes early mail voting; authorizes registered voters to obtain early mail voting ballots through application to the board of elections; requires the state board of elections to establish and maintain an electronic early mail ballot application transmittal system through which voters may apply for an early mail ballot online.”
But for the plaintiffs, it was clear the law was a “blatant violation” of Article II, § 2 of the New York State Constitution, which says this on absentee voting [emphasis added]:
The legislature may, by general law, provide a manner in which, and the time and place at which, qualified voters who, on the occurrence of any election, may be absent from the county of their residence or, if residents of the city of New York, from the city, and qualified voters who, on the occurrence of any election, may be unable to appear personally at the polling place because of illness or physical disability, may vote and for the return and canvass of their votes.
The vote-by-mail law, plaintiffs asserted, should be struck down because it “nevertheless purports to allow qualified voters to vote by mail rather than in person, even if they do not satisfy either of the two limited exceptions set forth” in § 2.
In early February, Albany Supreme Court Justice Christina Ryba declared that the Early Mail Voter Act was “constitutional” under New York state’s constitution and granted Democrats’ motions to dismiss the Republican-backed complaint.
“The Court finds that the Early Mail Voter Act is not inconsistent with any express provision of article II, §2 of the NY Constitution, nor does it violate any restriction on legislative power that may be necessarily implied therefrom. Contrary to plaintiffs’ contention, there is no express language in article II, § 2 that requires all individuals to vote in person at their designated polling place on the day of an election,” the judge wrote. “Nor does that provision contain any express language prohibiting the Legislature from enacting laws that permit all eligible voters to vote by mail. Rather, the plain language of article II, § 2 simply permits the Legislature to create laws to provide special accommodations for certain categories of voters who are physically unable to appear at their designated polling place on the day of an election. It in no way limits the Legislature’s inherent plenary power or its constitutional authority to enact laws that generally provide for voting methods other than by ballot.”
The Republican challenge of the vote-by-mail-early law didn’t fare any better at the appellate level on Thursday, as the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, Third Judicial Department, granted a motion to dismiss the appeal and denied “as academic” Stefanik and the Republicans’ motion to expedite the appeal. It seems the plaintiff-appellants’ lawyers did not oppose Hochul’s motion to dismiss.
Read the brief denial here.
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