The chairpersons of five political parties and several candidates in the November 5 General Election in New York City, arguing that the ballot that has been published by the NY City Board of Elections for the General Election on November 5, 2013 is severely flawed, defective, and prejudicial have, have served legal notice on the BOE October 30, with their objections to the November 5 ballot.
They believe the ballot is highly prejudicial to third parties and third-party candidates and so is in flagrant violation of NY State election law.
“It’s fairly obvious the amateurish and atrocious design of this ballot can be directly attributed to the collusion of the two major parties to protect their own lines at the expense of all other parties,” said Carl Lundgren, Green Party candidate for Bronx Borough President.
“If this ballot were a deliberate attempt to confuse third party voters, it couldn’t have been done better! A two-page ballot allowable under NYS election law would have given all parties enough room to have their own columns, but the two major parties have total control of the electoral process … and this must be challenged,” said Tom Siracuse, the Green Party candidate for Manhattan’s City Council District 6.
According to the complaint, the ballot does not identify the parties and candidates by their emblems (as the party identifying symbols are known), and the ballot columns lack column designating letters (or numbers), as required by New York State Election Law.
Unlike the columns for third parties, the Democratic and Republican columns are dedicated solely to their respective candidates; however, the third party columns co-mingle candidates of multiple parties. In the case of some judicial offices, the ballot contains instructions that the voter should vote for more than one judicial candidate, but there are no instructions that the voter should vote for one and not more than one candidate for those offices where only one seat is to be filled.
Since candidates from different parties are co-mingled in the third parties’ columns, this circumstance increases the likelihood of voter mistakes (over-votes) by those voters who choose to vote for third party candidates, thus potentially voiding and invalidating many thousands of votes cast on third party lines – a problem that does not apply to the Democratic and Republican columns, says a press release sent out by the five parties.