New York Attorney General Letitia James is increasingly becoming a Democrat darling based on her actions against Donald Trump. Nobody noticed in 2022 when a particular piece of legislation was due to take effect just months before the election that would give her “unprecedented power”. New Yorkers need to brace themselves. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York takes effect Sunday.
Election 2024
Governor Kathy Hochul signed that into law. Part of it requires preclearance from the Attorney General or court involved in making decisions under the law in the election process.
Attorney Joseph Burns has experience in electoral law and understands Republican politics. “Jurisdictions can fall under the new rule’s shadow for multiple reasons — including arrest rates for citizens in ‘protected classes.’”
Election law
These moves might be more normal than people would think but the reasons behind them might be more evil. Burns wrote, “If a poll site needs to be moved or a voter list must be culled to removed deceased residents, that jurisdiction’s Board of Elections will have to seek AG approval first. More troubling, the law includes a provision that allows the AG to expand the list of local election board functions that will require preclearance.”
In New York the election is generally administered by bipartisan boards with both parties equally represented. But those preclearance regulations allow Letitia James “unprecedented power over election processes in some of the most hotly contested congressional districts in the nation, including those on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley.”
Democrats are quiet about this election
Burns spoke to the news,
“Our elections — and the public’s faith in them — will not be improved by the AG’s meddling.” He called the effects “a political earthquake. Nobody is really talking about it or what a big effect it’s going to have. But it’s interesting because, look, there’s a lot of bad stuff that happens in New York when it comes to the elections and everything else, but this strikes me as being particularly bad. And it’s certainly quite a power grab by the attorney general as well.”
This move covers New York City, nine of Long Island’s jurisdictions and four counties in upstate. The reasons this act might kick in is more mundane than people might think. It might sound sinister but, like in Burns’ county, it was a case that they just couldn’t agree on redistricting. He worries more about eroding trust in the election process. “It isn’t just bad policy, because it undermines the bipartisan nature of the boards of elections. Which, again, they’re not perfect, there’s so many inefficiencies.
But by and large, in this day and age where people are so concerned about election integrity, what’s better than having both sides have a stake in the outcome, both sides wanting to and needing to make sure that elections are run smoothly and fairly? And now you have a partisan elected official stepping in to essentially have a veto power over our boards of elections.”
