Email Is No Exception to Snail-Mail Voter Deadlines, Judge Rules

MANHATTAN (CN) — Finding nothing ambiguous about New York’s postmark deadline for registering to vote, a federal judge snuffed out a lawsuit Friday from a dozen people living in Israel who thought emailing their applications allowed more time.

Here, the would-be voters have never lived in the United States but can apply for “special federal voter” designation as the children of citizens living overseas whose last U.S. addresses were in New York.

It’s also known as the “post card” law because of the Federal Post Card Application form needed to register. New York law says these postcards must be postmarked by Oct. 9 and received by Oct. 14, but that timeframe coincided this year with Israel’s national lockdown for the Covid-19 pandemic.

Stay-at-home orders were only lifted in Israel on Oct. 18, but would-be voters like Hanna Abigail Deutsch learned that New York allows applicants to email their forms.

As U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield ruled Friday, however, the postmark deadline still applies for emailed applications.

“New York law treats all prospective voters equally, regardless of whether they apply to vote via email or traditional mail,” the 16-page decision states. “All individuals who failed to send their applications by that date may not register to vote.”

Schofield declined to enter an injunction for Deutsch and the 11 other voters who sued after the applications they submitted between Oct. 10 and Oct. 14 were rejected or otherwise ignored.

Calling the state’s rule was confusing, arbitrary and unconstitutional, the challengers pointed out conflicting policies in Kings and Nassau counties, where emailed applications are still counted as received between the two deadlines on an ad hocbasis. None of the challengers who applied in Kings apparently made the cut, and the other applicants had submitted to Richmond and Rockland counties.

Schofield went on to say that application deadlines do not impose a severe restriction on the ability to vote, but simply set a time by which special federal voters must apply. 

“In that regard, it is no different from many other election laws designed to ensure fair and efficient administration of election procedures,” the judge wrote.  

As for the claims that the New York process “completely disenfranchises thousands of voters,” the judge found this “true of any voter registration deadline.” 

Schofield also noted that the plaintiffs could not provide sufficient evidence of counties accepting emailed applications after Oct. 9, as they had claimed.  

Ultimately, since the deadlines for emailed and mailed applications are effectively the same, Schofield ruled that New York did not treat the overseas voters differently from residents.

The plaintiffs were represented by the Manhattan firm Zell & Associates, but no lawyer there has returned a request for comment. 

Follow @NinaPullano

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