Gonsalves v. New York State Board of Elections

974 F. Supp. 2d 191, 2013 WL 5464625, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142907
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. New York
DecidedOctober 2, 2013
DocketNo. 13-cv-5104 (JFB)(WDW)
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 974 F. Supp. 2d 191 (Gonsalves v. New York State Board of Elections) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gonsalves v. New York State Board of Elections, 974 F. Supp. 2d 191, 2013 WL 5464625, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142907 (E.D.N.Y. 2013).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

JOSEPH F. BIANCO, District Judge.

Plaintiff Norma Gonsalves, along with fifty-five other individuals (the “plaintiff candidates”), are candidates for various public offices throughout Nassau County. Each plaintiff candidate has been validly nominated as a candidate of a political party, as well as a candidate of the Tax Revolt Party, which is defined as an independent body under New York Election Law.1 On September 13, 2013, the plaintiff candidates, along with voter Raquan Webster (the “plaintiff voter”) (collectively, “plaintiffs”), brought this action against the New York State Board of Elections [194]*194(the “State Board”) and the Nassau County Board of Elections (the “County Board”), alleging that New York State Election Law § 7-104 violates their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiffs simultaneously moved for an Order to Show Cause, seeking a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order. The Republican Commissioner of the County Board, Louis G. Savinetti (“Savinetti”), supports plaintiffs’ motion, and the State Board takes no position with respect to the merits of the complaint. The Democratic Commissioner of the County Board, William T. Biamonte (“Biamonte”), filed a memorandum of law in opposition to plaintiffs’ motion. The New York State Attorney General, on behalf of the State of New York (the “State”), has also intervened in this action, arguing that plaintiffs’ motion should be denied.

As set forth in more detail infra, New York State allows fusion politics, whereby a candidate that has been nominated by more than one party or independent body may appear on a ballot multiple times, and all votes for that candidate are pooled in determining the results of the election. Pursuant to Section 7-104, on a typical ballot in Nassau County, the leftmost column lists the names of political parties and independent bodies, and each adjacent column lists the candidate nominated by that party or independent body for each election. When a candidate has been nominated by two or more political parties, as well as an independent body, the candidate’s name appears only in the lines associated with the political parties that have nominated her. The independent body does not receive its own ballot line; instead, the independent body’s name and emblem appears next to the candidate’s name on a political party’s ballot line. Plaintiffs argue that this scheme, which does not require a separate ballot line for the Tax Revolt Party in every instance in which it has validly nominated a candidate for public office, violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

For the reasons set forth below, the Court denies plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order because it is clear that Section 7-104 does not violate the First and Fourteenth Amendment, either facially or as applied to the facts of this case. Specifically, the Court finds that the burdens placed on the plaintiff candidates and the plaintiff voter are not severe. Because the State’s expressed interest in minimizing ballot confusion and promoting ballot integrity outweighs the non-severe burdens placed on the plaintiff candidates and the plaintiff voter, the Court concludes, based upon the record before it, that the statute does not violate plaintiffs’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Plaintiffs’ motion must fail because they have not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits or even sufficiently serious questions going to the merits making them a fair ground for litigation.

I. Background

A. Factual Background

The following facts are taken from the complaint, as well as the parties’ submissions to the Court.

The terms “party” and “independent body” are defined terms under New York election law. A, party is “any political organization which at the last preceding election for governor polled at least fifty thousand votes for its candidate for governor.” N.Y. Elec. Law. § 1-104(3). An independent body is “any organization or group of voters which nominates a candidate or candidates for office to be voted for at an election, and which is not a party as herein provided.” Id. § 1-104(12).

New York election ballots are formatted as a grid. For example, on a typical ballot [195]*195in Nassau County, the leftmost column will be comprised of the names of parties and independent bodies, and the top row will list each election that a voter has the option of casting a ballot for. See id. § 7-104(3)—(4). Candidates for each elected office appear adjacent to the party or independent body that has nominated them.

New York State allows fusion politics, whereby a candidate that has been nominated by more than one party or independent body may appear on a ballot multiple times, and all votes for that candidate are pooled in determining the results of the election. A candidate nominated by multiple parties will appear in the row of each party that nominated her. Id. § 7-104(4)(b).

However, the Election Law becomes more complicated when a candidate has been nominated by a party and an independent body. If a candidate has been nominated by only one party and one or more independent bodies, the candidate’s name appears twice, once in the row associated with the party that nominated her and once in a row associated with an independent party. If a candidate has been nominated by multiple political parties and at least one independent body, the candidate’s name appears in the rows associated with each nominating political party, but no separate line associated with the independent body is created on the ballot. Instead, the independent body’s name and emblem is printed next to the candidate’s name alongside one of the political parties that nominated the candidate. Moreover, under Section 7-104, where the independent body has obtained a separate ballot line — because it has nominated at least one candidate for an elected position on the ballot who does not meet the above-referenced criteria for use of the emblem — the other candidates for that independent body who do meet the criteria for an emblem still do not appear on the independent body’s line and simply maintain the emblem on a political party’s line, thereby leaving a blank space for that particular elected office in the column for that independent body.2 See id. § 7 — 104(4)(e)—(d). According to the New York Court of Appeals, this statute “expresses a continuing [196]*196legislative policy of preventing the major party candidates from pre-empting the whole ballot through the device of setting up independent political bodies” because, without this limitation, parties could flood the ballot (by setting up various independent bodies) and have their candidate appear ad infinitum on the ballot. Battista v. Power, 16 N.Y.2d 198, 201, 264 N.Y.S.2d 370, 211 N.E.2d 821 (1965) (upholding constitutionality of predecessor to Section 7-104).

The Tax Revolt Party is an independent body under New York Election Law. (Compl. ¶ 4.) Plaintiffs state that the “Tax Revolt Party has a long history in the State of New York, extending back to the 1980’s and 1990’s where independent bodies [used] names such as ‘Tax Cut Party,’ ‘Tax Revolt Party’ and ‘Tax Cut Now.’ ” (Id. ¶ 5.) According to Biamonte, the Tax Revolt Party is “a de facto

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Bluebook (online)
974 F. Supp. 2d 191, 2013 WL 5464625, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142907, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gonsalves-v-new-york-state-board-of-elections-nyed-2013.