League of Women Voters lawsuit seeks to consolidate N.Y. primaries, open door for Cuomo run

ALBANY —A federal lawsuit filed Thursday seeking to combine all of New York’s primaries in August could open the door for ex-governor Andrew Cuomo to take another shot at running for his old office.

The legal challenge is the latest to take issue with the current plan to hold statewide and Assembly primary contests in June and congressional and state Senate primaries in August after the state’s highest court struck down Democrat-drawn district lines.

The League of Women Voters argue in the suit that the Board of Elections unlawfully certified primary ballots for statewide races, including the governor’s race, since candidates collected signatures based on since-scrapped congressional maps.

“The State Board of Elections, apparently with the support of the leaders of both major political parties, put in place a deliberately exclusionary electoral regime for statewide offices designed to limit further competition in the primary and from independent candidates in the general election,” Laura Ladd Bierman, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.

The suit alleges that the Board’s actions violate New York voters’ freedom of association under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. If successful, the suit would move all of the state’s primaries to August and reopen the petitioning process for all races.

That could give the disgraced former governor, who resigned last year in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual harassment from staffers, a path to the primary ballot.

One of the petitioners in the suit argues in an affidavit that she should have “the ability to support and vote for other candidates beyond the candidates who are currently running in the Governor’s race.”

The petitioner, Petra Gopfert, goes on to say that she specifically wants to “sign and support a petition to add Andrew Cuomo to the Democratic Party primary ballot for Governor.”

A Cuomo spokesman declined to comment on the suit.

A separate legal challenge filed last week at the state level seeking to have the Assembly districts discarded and redrawn likewise calls for the reopening of the petitioning process for all races.

Gov. Hochul has repeatedly said she favors keeping the June 28 date for statewide primaries. As the Democratic Party’s preferred candidate, Hochul did not have to collect signatures to secure a spot on the ballot.

Her primary challengers, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-L.I.) and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, both secured more than the 15,000 necessary signatures required.

New York’s election calendar has been thrown into chaos since the Court of Appeals struck down congressional and state Senate boundaries, determining that the Democrat-led Legislature failed to follow procedures set out in the state Constitution and gerrymandering House districts in their favor.

A court-appointed independent expert was tasked with coming up with more competitive maps.

Candidates for the congressional and state Senate primaries slated for Aug. 23 can begin collecting signatures as soon as this weekend once the new lines are finalized on Friday.

Meanwhile, a hearing is scheduled for next Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court where Democratic activist Gary Greenberg and Gavin Wax, the head of the New York Young Republican Club, filed their bipartisan legal challenge calling for the Assembly maps to be tossed and the state’s primary elections to be consolidated.

A pair of legal filings from Greenberg and Wax were dismissed last week by Steuben County Supreme Court Judge Patrick McAllister, who said it was too late to redraw the Assembly lines.

The lawsuit, which also lists Democratic gubernatorial candidate Paul Nichols as a petitioner, argues that the only fair move is to consolidate the primaries and redraw all districts to comply with constitutional requirements.