{"id":14525,"date":"2020-05-05T20:43:55","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T03:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=14525"},"modified":"2020-05-05T20:43:57","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T03:43:57","slug":"new-york-must-hold-democratic-presidential-primary-judge-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/05\/05\/new-york-must-hold-democratic-presidential-primary-judge-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Must Hold Democratic Presidential Primary, Judge Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>The primary in June, which had been canceled over concerns about the coronavirus, should still be held, with all qualifying candidates restored to the ballot, a federal judge ruled.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/05\/05\/us\/politics\/05nyprimary\/merlin_146427729_42519e49-6adf-4c3e-b500-9f9f8ccecbcf-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"Voting in the Bronx during the 2018 midterm elections. This year\u2019s Democratic presidential primary in New York was canceled late last month.\u00a0\"\/><figcaption>Voting in the Bronx during the 2018 midterm elections. This year\u2019s Democratic presidential primary in New York was canceled late last month.&nbsp;Credit&#8230;Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/matt-stevens\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2019\/04\/03\/multimedia\/author-matt-stevens\/author-matt-stevens-thumbLarge.png\" alt=\"Matt Stevens\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/nick-corasaniti\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2018\/06\/13\/multimedia\/author-nick-corasaniti\/author-nick-corasaniti-thumbLarge-v2.png\" alt=\"Nick Corasaniti\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>By&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/matt-stevens\">Matt Stevens<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/nick-corasaniti\">Nick Corasaniti<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>May 5, 2020. (NYTimes.com)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>A federal judge on Tuesday ordered elections officials in New York State to hold its Democratic primary election in June and reinstate all qualifying candidates on the ballot. The ruling came after the presidential primary was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/04\/27\/us\/politics\/democratic-primary-canceled-coronavirus.html\">canceled late last month<\/a>&nbsp;over concerns about the coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The order, filed by Judge Analisa Torres of United States District Court, came in response to a lawsuit filed last week by the former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. He sought to undo the New York State Board of Elections\u2019 decision in late April to cancel the June 23 contest, a move it attributed to health and safety worries and the fact that the results would not change the primary\u2019s outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Tuesday night, Douglas A. Kellner, a co-chair of the New York Board of Elections, said the board was \u201creviewing the decision and preparing an appeal.\u201d And speaking on CNN, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said the presidential primary would proceed per the court\u2019s ruling at least for the time being, but he noted the potential for an appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Yang said in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AndrewYang\/status\/1257826412851011584\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a statement on Twitter<\/a>&nbsp;that he was \u201cglad that a federal judge agreed that depriving millions of New Yorkers of the right to vote was wrong,\u201d and he urged state elections officials to safeguard democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The initial move to cancel the presidential primary drew a backlash from the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, whose decision to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/04\/08\/us\/politics\/bernie-sanders-drops-out.html\">suspend his campaign in April<\/a>&nbsp;made former Vice President&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2020\/us\/elections\/joe-biden.html\">Joseph R. Biden Jr.<\/a>&nbsp;the presumptive Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it sowed confusion around the state; though the statewide presidential primary was canceled, dozens of local elections were not, leaving some candidates and political operatives nervous that voters might presume the entire primary had been called off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Sanders\u2019s campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, said in a statement on Tuesday: \u201cWe\u2019re glad Judge Torres has restored basic democracy in New York. People in every state should have the right to express their preference in the 2020 Democratic primary. We have confidence that New York can hold elections in June in a safe manner that preserves New Yorkers\u2019 right to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his lawsuit, Mr. Yang and a group of his delegates contended that their rights had been violated when their names were removed from the presidential primary ballot and the primary was canceled. In her ruling, the judge found this to be true, and said Mr. Yang and other candidates whose names were purged from the ballot had shown that they had been caused \u201cirreparable injury.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Neither Mr. Yang nor Mr. Sanders had \u201ctaken formal action\u201d to remove himself from the ballot, the judge added. And although she acknowledged that protecting the public from the spread of the virus was \u201can important state interest,\u201d she wrote that \u201cthe Court is not convinced that canceling the presidential primary would meaningfully advance that interest \u2014 at least not to the degree as would justify the burdensome impingement\u201d on the plaintiffs\u2019  rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even though he suspended his campaign, Mr. Sanders had repeatedly pleaded for his supporters to vote for him, arguing that the more delegates he could amass, the greater leverage he would have over policy discussions with Mr. Biden and the Democratic platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But progressives around New York also sounded the alarm that canceling the presidential primary could have an outsize impact on their turnout. The presence of Mr. Sanders, a galvanizing force for progressives around the country, on top of the ticket was likely to drive more turnout for down-ballot races, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jeff Weaver, who served as a senior adviser on the Sanders campaign, said he was \u201coverjoyed\u201d at the judge\u2019s decision and said the Sanders legal team had coordinated with Mr. Yang\u2019s legal team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThese primaries are not just for nominating a candidate for president, but they are also for electing delegates who are going to decide the platform of the party, who are going to decide the rules of the party,\u201d Mr. Weaver said. He pointed to Mr. Sanders\u2019s 2016 delegates as essential to the party\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/08\/25\/us\/politics\/superdelegates-democrats-dnc.html\">overhaul of its superdelegate system<\/a>&nbsp;as an example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also called for the State Legislature in New York to meet and pass a new law vastly expanding vote-by-mail, and to use the primary as a \u201ctesting ground for an all-vote-by-mail system in New York State.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Though the initial decision was made by the independent Board of Elections, and Mr. Cuomo did not directly weigh in during deliberations, liberal groups like Our Revolution, a Sanders-aligned outside group, saw the invisible hand of the governor. Absent the reversal, Larry Cohen, the chair of Our Revolution, had vowed to wage a floor fight at the Democratic National Convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAndrew Cuomo did his best to deny Sanders and other delegates the right to represent their party as the party rules require,\u201d Mr. Cohen said. \u201cCongratulations Andrew Yang for standing with us and winning for all of us. Vote-by-mail is the answer to the pandemic, not voter suppression.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jay Jacobs, the chairman of the New York State Democratic Party, said he still believed it was a \u201cmistake\u201d to hold a statewide presidential primary, but said it was out of the state party\u2019s control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was not in our hands in the first place, it\u2019s not in our hands now,\u201d Mr. Jacobs said. \u201cI supported the position that stood for the health and safety of poll workers and voters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The primary in June, which had been canceled over concerns about the coronavirus, should still be held, with all qualifying candidates restored to the ballot, a federal judge ruled. By&nbsp;Matt Stevens&nbsp;and&nbsp;Nick Corasaniti May 5, 2020. (NYTimes.com) A federal judge on Tuesday ordered elections officials in New York State to hold&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/05\/05\/new-york-must-hold-democratic-presidential-primary-judge-rules\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14525"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14526,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14525\/revisions\/14526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}