Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., questions Columbia University president Nemat Shafik during the House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing on “Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism” on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 17, 2024 (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana).
A New York congresswoman called for voters to “swamp the ballot box” and “rid ourselves of New York’s politically corrupt Democrats” after the state’s highest court threw out her challenge to mail-in voting Tuesday.
Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., led a coalition of elected officials, voters, and prominent Republicans to challenge New York’s Early Mail Voter Act, which allows all registered voters to vote early by mail in any election in which the voter is eligible to vote.
Chief Judge Rowan Wilson penned the 89-page ruling for a seven-judge panel of the Court of Appeals, the Empire State’s top court. The opinion said while the legislative and executive branches “have often proceeded as if” in-person voting is required by the state’s constitution, there is no language in the document itself that actually mandates the practice.
The Early Mail Voter Act was passed in September 2023 and was set to take effect Jan. 1, 2024. It specifically authorized registered voters in New York to apply to “vote early by mail … in any election … in which the voter is eligible to vote.” Interestingly, the legislation came shortly after the failure of a 2021 constitutional amendment to allow universal absentee voting in the state.
When the amendment was on the ballot in November 2021, it was accompanied by the explanation that the measure was necessary because “the New York Constitution only allows absentee voting if a person expects to be absent from the county in which they live … or because of illness or physical disability.” Voters rejected the proposal. Then, in 2023, the legislature passed the Early Mail Voter Act and touted it as different in that it authorized “early” voting rather than “absentee” voting.
Stefanik led a group of Republicans to challenge the law in court, maintaining that it violated a provision in the state constitution that provided for the legislature’s authority to set voting rules for those unable to vote in person due to illness or disability. The state Supreme Court — New York’s trial court — agreed and declared the act unconstitutional.
Wilson conducted a lengthy analysis of New York’s constitutional history, including the history of absentee voting during the Civil War. Ultimately, the panel concluded that although the state legislature may have assumed in-person voting was required in the past, it has never actually been required by the Empire State’s constitution.
Wilson addressed New Yorkers’ stance against absentee voting at the ballot box head-on.
“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,” he wrote. “At the same time, we may not simply defer to the legislature’s assumptions about what the constitution requires.”
Judge Michael Garcia was the lone dissenter in the case. Garcia said that he could not join in the ruling because it made “the People’s recent vote” to preserve in-person voting “meaningless.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said in a statement Tuesday:
Generations of Americans fought to secure and protect the right to vote, and we have a responsibility to continue removing the barriers that persist today that prevent far too many people from exercising that right. Today’s ruling is a significant victory for democracy and another loss for those who seek to disenfranchise New Yorkers and undermine access to the ballot.
Likewise, New York State Attorney General Letitia James lauded the ruling in a statement of her own:
The right to vote is the cornerstone of our nation, and government should make it easier for citizens to have their voices heard, not harder. While some want to put up roadblocks and stifle New Yorkers’ ability to exercise their Constitutional right to vote, I will always stand up and protect this basic, yet essential, freedom. Every election, at every level of government, is a beautiful celebration of patriotism and civic responsibility, and I encourage all New Yorkers to exercise their right to vote and to hold their public servants accountable. I will keep working to protect our state’s laws, and will do everything within my power to push back against anti-voting rights efforts and instead empower New Yorkers’ access the polls.
Stefanik denounced the decision as “unconstitutional” in a fiery statement that took aim at New York’s entire judiciary. She wrote:
New York’s court system is so corrupt and disgraceful that today’s ruling has essentially declared that for over 150 years, New York’s elected officials, voters, and judges misunderstood their own state’s Constitution, and that in-person voting was never required outside the current legal absentee process. The court disgracefully claims to know the constitutional framers’ intent more than they did, disregarding the framers’ understanding, prior constitutional amendments on this issue, and constitutional interpretation norms as “not relevant.” It’s never been clearer: the only way forward to Save New York is to get commonsense New Yorkers to swamp the ballot box and vote Republican up and down the ballot and rid ourselves of New York’s politically corrupt Democrats.
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