Judge Briefly Hospitalized, Legal Proceedings On Hold In NY-20
The NY-20 special election's litigation was put on hold today, when the scheduled court proceedings were delayed due to Judge James V. Brands being hospitalized and undergoing tests.
Senior court clerk Karen Bitonte told TPM that Judge Brands expects to be back in his chambers tomorrow, and court will resume on Wednesday. In Judge Brands' absence, the lawyers for both sides spoke to Brands' clerk. "The lawyers voiced their concerns to the judge's law clerk, and she was going to take them to the judge," Bitonte explained.
One outstanding issue here is whether the campaign of GOP candidate Jim Tedisco can successfully challenge certain absentee voters who maintain two addresses -- voting in the district, but having driver's licenses in New York City or elsewhere. If Tedisco were to be turned down in all or most examples, that would likely result in a pickup of as many as 100 votes for Democrat Scott Murphy.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Since when is a driver's license issued in a state not valid within the same said state?
April 13, 2009 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's not the argument. The argument is that registering your driver's license to another address requires a legal affirmation that it is your primary address, hence, disputing your claim to residency at your voting address (if it is different). Thankfully, only the paper ballots get such scrutiny or else a much bigger chunk of the electorate would be subject to disenfranchisement on these technicalities.
Just an FYI, due to the amount of time each paper ballot takes to count, there is still paper uncounted in Dutchess county. At the moment there are only 5 towns in Dutchess fully tabulated. I repeat, the paper is not yet all in, and I would be looking at the margin in Dutchess widening as Red Hook and Rhinebeck get their paper through the lawyers. I can't speak for the other counties but I would assume that only the smaller counties have finished going through all that paper.
April 13, 2009 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
This exact issue came up a few years ago. The Judge ruled in favor of the registered voters. Below is a link to a news article about the decision. As an aside this was in western Otsego county, and NY-20 includes part of eastern Otsego county.
http://www.thedailystar.com/archivesearch/local_story_251084100.html
April 13, 2009 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just dug this link up as well, which is specific to NY:
http://countryvote.org/main.html
April 13, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
A slight correction to chrisbarown's comment; the Daily Star article refers to challenged votes in Delaware County, which is in NY-20. The issue then was specifically about "dual residence" voting, and the right to vote in either of one's residences was soundly affirmed in court. Despite this victory and knowing this election would be a squeaker, I made sure to be there to vote in person this time... seeing how I was one of the eight voters challenged. Glad I did.
April 14, 2009 8:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
This post on the DailyKos might speak directly as to why the Judge decided to take himself out of the picture for a few days. To allow the Republicans time to challenge as many ballots as possible:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/14/191335/772
Since he leans Republican, and seems to have decided in their favor many times in the past, this election is completely up for grabs now; all those projections of a Murphy win in the absentee ballot count, probably out the window.
April 15, 2009 6:15 AM | Reply | Permalink