Board of Elections puts Trump on NY primary ballot for president despite protests
The New York State Board of Elections voted Tuesday to put former President Donald Trump on the state’s presidential primary ballot — just two days before the Supreme Court will hear a high-stakes challenge to the GOP frontrunner’s ballot eligibility.
The two Republican commissioners on the elections board — Anthony Casale and Peter Kosinski — rejected arguments that Trump, 77, should be disqualified over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The bipartisan board has four members, however, the two Republicans have authority over GOP candidate eligibility.
Casale said Tuesday that the board had received correspondence from voters insisting the ex-commander-in-chief should be declared ineligible but that its decision was restricted by state rules on a candidate’s national prominence and campaign finances.
“No matter what critics say, our authority extends to those two criteria. We don’t feel we have the authority to go beyond that,” Casale said after the meeting.
“They have to go to court to do that. We don’t do that at the Board of Elections.”
Democrat State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, meanwhile, swiftly filed an objection with the board of elections and vowed to overthrow the decision, citing the 14th Amendment’s bar on officeholders who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion,” which was enacted after the Civil War.
“The Board of Elections can still uphold the United States Constitution by sustaining our objection and disqualifying Donald Trump from the presidential ballot,” Hoylman-Sigal said.
“As the Colorado State Supreme Court has already rightfully ruled, Donald Trump is disqualified from holding any elected office in the United States due to engaging in and inciting a violent insurrection in which he attempted to overturn the will of the American people while taking multiple lives,” the lawmaker continued.
“Should the Board of Elections fail to do their duty and rule Trump ineligible, I will see them in court.”
Hoylman-Sigal and others had previously sent a letter to the Empire State Board of Elections in December claiming that the former president should be barred from the state ballot due to his role in the insurrection.
Hoylman-Sigal has retained two lawyers Roger Bernstein and Jerry Goldfeder to represent him and other anti-Trump objectors.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court will decide whether Trump can be kept off state presidential ballots after the Colorado Supreme Court found he had violated the Constitution’s so-called “Insurrection Clause.”
