Pavis v. Heffernan

185 Misc. 626, 57 N.Y.S.2d 923, 1945 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2370
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 15, 1945
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 185 Misc. 626 (Pavis v. Heffernan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pavis v. Heffernan, 185 Misc. 626, 57 N.Y.S.2d 923, 1945 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2370 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1945).

Opinion

Golden, J.

Application to declare valid the nominating petition filed by the petitioner designating him as a candidate for the office of City Councilman of the City of New York from the Borough of Richmond, to be voted for in the forthcoming general election, and to direct the Board of Elections to place his name on the official councilmanic ballots. Said designating petition was declared invalid by the Board of Elections upon a hearing on objections duly filed, and it is the determination thus made which is sought here to be reviewed.

Subdivision b of section 1004 of the New York City Charter (1938) provides that nominations for councilman for any borough of the city of New York “ shall be signed by not fewer than two thousand electors who have registered as voters of [628]*628such borough within eighteen months previous to the filing of the petition.” Petitioner’s nominating petition contains 2,326 signatures. There were 921 objections specified, of which 716 were passed upon and upheld by the Board of Elections, thereby reducing the petition to fewer than the required 2,000 signatures.

The hearing before this court was confined to a review of signatures found invalid by the Board of Elections as to which objections had been duly registered with said board. Objections not previously raised were likewise made, but consideration thereof was held- in abeyance pending a ruling by this court as to its jurisdiction to consider such objections irrespective of whether they had been previously raised before the Board .of Elections. The ruling of the court, in view of the authorities, must be that such objections may be considered (Matter of Vona v. Cohen, 150 Misc. 649, affd. 240 App. Div. 827, affd. 262 N. Y. 706; see, also, Matter of O’Connor [Babcock], 180 Misc. 630, 632; Matter of Sposato [Graham], 180 Misc. 933, 935). The court has also not considered or passed upon the objections which were specified before the Board of Elections but not passed upon by it. The petitioner conceded the invalidity of a total of 125 signatures in the categories embraced in the hearing before the court, thus reducing the number of claimed valid signatures in the petition to 2,201.

The first category of objections presented for review involved 235 signatures, which the Board of Elections invalidated because they were -obtained before July 29, 1945, which is concededly more than 100 days prior to this year’s general election. Of these 107 signatures have been objected to for additional reasons not yet presented for review. Subdivision f of section 1004 of the Mew York City Charter specifically provides “ A signature made -earlier than one hundred days before the election shall not be counted. ’ ’ Petitioner claims, however, that section. 314 of the Election Law (L. 1945, ch. 350),. which was passed to make war ballots available to servicemen and women for this year’s general election, suspended the foregoing 100-da> provision of the charter. The difficulty with this contention is, however, that there is nothing in section 314 of the Election Law which permits the counting of signatures obtained more than 100 days before the election.

It is difficult to perceive upon what basis the court can supply the omission and state that a signature obtained X days in excess of 100 may be counted, notwithstanding the clear and unequivocal language to the contrary in the section of the charter above cited. To do so would place the court in the [629]*629position of legislating, a function with, which it is not clothed. It follows, therefore, that the 235 signatures in this category cannot be counted.

The next three categories may be considered together. Ill these, forty-seven signatures are claimed to be invalid because these voters registered for the 1944 election from districts other than those stated in the petition, twenty are claimed to be invalid because the voters omitted furnishing the election districts from which they had registered the previous year, and forty-six had omitted to furnish the addresses from which they had registered that year.

Subdivision a of section 1004 of the New York- City Charter provides that all nominations for City Councilman “ shall be by nominating petitions in accordance with the provisions of the election law for independent nominations so far as applicable except as herein otherwise provided.” So far as pertinent here, section 137 of the Election Law requires the petition for independent nominations to contain the following:

“Date Name of Residence ward Election Town or Assembly signer district city district

It is to be observed that the additional qualification prescribed by subdivision b of section 1004 of the City Charter to the effect that councilmanic nominating petitions for any borough shall be signed by electors “ who have registered as voters of sueh borough within eighteen months previous to the filing of the petition ” (italics supplied), is not provided for in the form of petition prescribed by the Election Law. The form of printed nominating petition here used, however, follows that prescribed by section 137 of the Election Law, and contains the following additional columns:

“ Address Prom Which I Richmond N. Y. City
Registered Within 18 Richmond County
Months Previous To the Election Assembly
Piling of This Petition District «District
Borough of Richmond
New York City ”

It is the errors and omissions in respect to the information required by these three columns that were the grounds for invalidating the signatures embraced in the three categories tinder consideration.

The difficulty here is due largely to the fact that the City Charter, While giving the qualifications of electors who might [630]*630sign a nominating petition for the office of councilman for any borough, failed to prescribe the petition which would reflect such qualifications, except by reference to the Election Law, which was intended to fit the qualifications peculiar to independent nominations only and was not, amended to embrace the additional qualifications required in a councilmanic nominating petition. The address, election and assembly districts from which the elector registered within eighteen months previous to the filing of the petition was obviously inserted in the nominating petition here involved to meet the additional requirements of the charter, in respect to which section 137 of the Election. Law is silent.

However, the sufficiency of a petition was upheld where, in addition to the information required by section 137 of the Election Law, the nominating petition for councilman of a borough contained also a statement that the signers were duly qualified voters who had registered to vote in the [particular borough], city of New York, within eighteen months previous to the filing of the petition.” (Matter of Carroll v. Cohen, 262 App. Div. 481, 482). Such is the situation here.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Codd v. Barbaro
111 Misc. 2d 135 (New York Supreme Court, 1981)
Frawley v. Regan
77 A.D.2d 937 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1980)
Donoghue v. Power
60 Misc. 2d 1032 (New York Supreme Court, 1969)
Tani v. Luddy
32 Misc. 2d 53 (New York Supreme Court, 1961)
Goldwater v. Simon
24 Misc. 2d 430 (New York Supreme Court, 1960)
Goldstein v. Fenton
202 Misc. 435 (New York Supreme Court, 1952)
Holmes v. Citizen's Protective Party
194 Misc. 866 (New York Supreme Court, 1949)
Pavis v. Heffernan
269 A.D. 912 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1945)
Hall v. Heffernan
185 Misc. 742 (New York Supreme Court, 1945)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
185 Misc. 626, 57 N.Y.S.2d 923, 1945 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2370, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pavis-v-heffernan-nysupct-1945.