Robert Hornak
Robert Hornak is a veteran political consultant who has previously served as the Deputy Directvor of the Republican Assembly Leader’s NYC office and as Executive Director of the Queens Republican Party. He can be reached at rahornak@gmail. com and @roberthornak on X.
New York talks a good game about supporting democracy and letting the voters decide, but still has some of the most complicated, restrictive, and anti-democratic election laws in the nation.
There are many parts to running for office, including opening a committee, getting on the ballot, raising money, and the election itself. NY has been very aggressive when it comes to providing taxpayer matching funds for political candidates, all in the name of empowering average voters and small dollar contributions over wealthy special interests and political insiders.
But the reality is that the major party organizations still have tremendous influence over who gets on the ballot, and therefore the choices the voters actually have come election day. And the partisan election system is set up to make sure that come November it’s still basically a two-person race, Democrat vs. Republican, in our entrenched two- party system.
New York has some of the most complicated and technical election laws in the nation. Most candidates get on the ballot by circulating petitions and collecting the signatures of eligible voters in a process that can only be described as hyper-technical, often resulting in minor errors that are fatal to the campaign.
For example, each signer writes in the date they are signing, their signature, maybe their printed name (it’s not required), their address and their town or county (in NYC). If the date is hard to read and it is crossed out and rewritten, that “alteration” must be initialed or the signature can be invalidated. A witness must print their personal information at the bottom of each page and then sign, but below that they must also include their town or city and their county, what is called witness verification information. Even if it is included above, if this is missing or incorrect in this section, the entire page is invalidated.
It is mistakes like this that get novice candidates who don’t have the help of people experienced in this process kicked off the ballot, ending their campaign before it begins. And this is how the process is rigged, for lack of a batter word, in favor of party leaders and experienced players while throwing up as many roadblocks to newcomers as possible.
Signature requirements are also a barrier. For example, to run for congress in NY, a candidate run- ning for the nomination of a ballot- qualified party must get 5% or 1250 signatures, whichever is less, from voters of the same party only. And every one of those signatures will be scrutinized for a way to invalidate it.
In comparison, to run for congress in NJ you need to collect 200 signatures from either members of your party or independent voters, using a much simpler petition form that the Board of Elections provides, and candidates just fill in the blanks. In CA, candidates can file petitions or pay a filing fee. In Florida it’s a combination of signatures from 1% of the registered voters and a $10,440 filing fee. Most states have an option to just pay a filing fee or to submit a fee along with a token number of signatures.
All this, of course, leads to each of the party primaries, that each party has great control over when it comes to who the voters get to vote for in November. Sure, you can still run as an independent, but major party candidates win 99% of the time.
It’s time for NY to consider a more simplified process where party is not the main factor and party organizations don’t control our choices. NYC’s non-partisan elections to fill municipal office vacancies is the way to go. No primary, make it easy to get on the ballot with minimal signature requirements of just a filing fee, to help offset the cost of the election, and then a November general election in what many states call a jungle election, where the best candidate wins.
One set of matching funds, instead of funding both partisan primaries and then the general. One election day with one week of early voting. One simple process where everyone who wants to run can run, and then the voters decide. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it.
