A New York Supreme Court Justice ruled in favor of the state Constitution Friday with a decision against the Democrat-controlled legislature’s vote-by-mail scheme still milking COVID “in an Orwellian perpetual state of health emergency.”
Leaders from right-leaning parties in New York were among the plaintiffs challenging the state, Board of Elections, governor, and other officials for their continued facilitation of the widely controversial use of mail-in ballots. Saratoga County Supreme Court Justice Dianne Freestone oversaw the case and issued forth a 28-page ruling ordering received absentee ballots cease to be counted.
Freestone wrote 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,'” and found fear of COVID did not justify the continuation of an unconstitutional provision.
Citing a November 2021 ballot proposal “overwhelmingly rejected” by New York voters to amend the Constitution and allow for universal mail-in voting, the justice then pointed to the legislature’s dismissal of that “clear and unequivocal mandate” as they extended their Election Law proviso set forth under a 2020 executive order by disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo that ought to have expired in January of 2022.
“Let’s hope now that they preserve our ability to make sure that our elections are done with integrity and that voters are verified and that this system of absentee balloting–just like the voters said last November that they didn’t want no-excuse absentee voting, essentially mail-in voting–that it is held to a high standard, that way to ensure that each citizen gets one vote,” said New York state Assemblyman Robert Smullen, one of the plaintiffs, according to WRGB.
For the time being, the absentee ballots already received are required to be preserved as the respondents immediately filed a notice to appeal Freestone’s ruling.
New York’s Conservative Party Chairman Gerald Kassar spoke to the Democrat Party’s attempt to “strip” voters of their rights and said in part, “This decision helps uphold the integrity of the electoral process, a major victory for New York voters and the rule of law.”
Statement from NYS Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar @gerardkas on Court Ruling over Absentee Ballot Voting pic.twitter.com/4rXGh7FMQn
— Conservative Party of NYS (@cpnys) October 21, 2022
New York state GOP Chairman Nick Langworthy also released a statement decrying the “Democrats’ attempt to rig our elections” and wrote, “As with all of these cases, the Constitution has been on our side and we will continue to fight to uphold the will of the voters and to ensure honest elections in New York.”
Statement from NYGOP Chairman @NickLangworthy on Winning the Lawsuit Challenging Democrats’ Illegal Absentee Ballot Laws⬇️
"Just like their illegal Hochulmander and their non-citizen voting scheme, Democrats’ attempt to rig our elections was slapped down by the courts." pic.twitter.com/SI2yAHRDMj— New York GOP (@NewYorkGOP) October 21, 2022
Common Cause New York (CCNY), billed as a “nonpartisan election-reform group” seemed hopeful in pointing out that the decision “might not even go into effect for this election,” according to the New York Post. “And, even if it does, it would only affect the time and way absentee ballots are counted–you can still vote absentee as planned, and your ballot will still be counted.”
Of course, the group’s leadership is far from “nonpartisan” as CCNY’s president Karen Hobert Flynn co-chairs the progressive group Democracy Initiative and sits on the board of Democracy 21, which bills “TrumpWatch” their mission to “hold accountable the anti-democracy forces unleashed in our country by former President Trump and his collaborators” as their top function.
Furthermore, in her role as a senior vice president for CCNY from 2012-2016 she launched the campaign to “expose and stop the dangerous movement in the states for a constitutional convention that would put in jeopardy every constitutional right or protection currently available to American citizens.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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