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New York State judge has said that allowing New Yorkers to vote by mail due to fear of Covid-19 is unconstitutional in a ruling that is being celebrated by Republicans and Conservative party leaders as a major victory for fair elections.
The 28-page ruling by Saratoga County Supreme Court Justice Dianne Freestone ordered local boards of election to stop counting absentee ballots they’ve already received.
Instead, officials have to “preserve” the ballots until after Election Day or the resolution of a pending suit filed by state and local GOP and Conservative party leaders.
Democrats outraged by the fact that you can vote without an ID and by mail immediately filed a notice saying they would appeal the judge’s decision.
In her ruling, Freestone said that the Democrat-controlled Legislature “appears poised to continue the expanded absentee voting provisions of New York State Election Law … in an Orwellian perpetual state of health emergency and cloaked in the veneer of ‘voter enfranchisement.’”
Rejecting arguments made by a lawyer for the state Board of Elections at a hearing earlier this month, Freestone said that “there are uncounted reasons for this Court to second-guess the wisdom of the Legislature.”
