Court ruling could reinstate WFP candidates on ballot

The fate of Working Families Party (WFP) candidates knocked off the June ballot in New York City is still up in the air after a ruling made by an upstate judge on Friday.

Onondaga County Supreme Court Judge Scott J. Delconte ruled in favor of WFP last week after Republicans in 15 counties upstate and in Long Island sued to get their candidates kicked off the ballot for a technicality.

The Republicans objected to the WFP use of a remote notary and electronic signatures on a required form, called a Wilson-Pakula, that gives candidates who aren’t members of the party permission to run on the party line. They argued that the forms were invalid, or even fraudulent because they did not have “wet” or original signatures.

Delconte dismissed the Republican claims and ruled that WFP did not violate election law by using remote notaries and electronic signatures. That decision could affect the fate of the WFP candidates in New York City who were kicked off the June primary ballots for the same technicality.

Last month, the New York City Board of Elections disqualified nearly every single candidate put forward by WFP because they said the party did not use original signatures on their Wilson-Pakulas. Among these were WFP star candidates Brad Lander for Comptroller, Jumaane Williams for re-election as Public Advocate and Tiffany Cabán.

Sharon Cromwell, Deputy State Director of the New York Working Families Party, said that she hopes the BOE takes the judge’s ruling into consideration and reverses their decision. Currently, she said, they are in opposition to the law and to the ruling.

“That should be accepted by boards of elections,” Cromwell said about the Supreme Court ruling. “They decided to dismiss the Wilson-Pakula before the lawsuit was decided.”

The technicality resulted from different interpretations of an executive order issued by Governor Andrew Cuomo at the start of the pandemic in March last year. The order allows for documents to be notarized remotely by notary publics and for documents allowed under the Electronic Signatures and Records Act to be signed with electronic signatures.

The BOE has not yet said whether they would be reconsidering their decision to knock the WFP candidates off the ballot based on the judgment.