WPCNR White Plains Law Journal. By John F. Bailey. March 23, 2004: Assemblyman Adam Bradley, speaking to WPCNR, from Albany Monday afternoon said he was hoping to get his own Election Law Reform bill, into effect by the next city wide elections which would be in November 2005. Bradley’s is the second effort to reform Election Law to allow New York Judges to rule in general election disputes.
The Attorney General's Office presented its Election Law Reform Bill within the last week. Mr. Bradley said yesterday that he did not agree with the broadness of the Attorney General's bill, but was willing to work with the Attorney General to develop a bill. Bradley said the Attorney General's bill had no sponsors in the Assembly.
His bill, Mr. Bradley said, was introduced to the Assembly about two weeks ago, and he has been caucusing with members of the Assembly Election Law Committee on nuances of the bill.
“I have a number of sponsors for it, so we’ll see. I’m actually now negotiating to see what we can do.” Bradley told WPCNR. Asked what the timetable was, Mr. Bradley said. “That depends. The first thing is, we have to see if the (New York) Senate puts in a bill, this bill or another bill that does this. I’m working with some staff on the election law committee here in Albany, and a lot of this is in dealing with what I believe is the best way to allow for elections to both have integrity and to also be final.”
Asked who in the senate was going to take up the bill, “I’ve spoken to a couple of senators. Right now, nobody has done anything to my knowledge. But, it’s still early considering that I only put this in two weeks ago. I’m currently actually working on some other issues with some of the people that work for the election law committee here which may lead me to amend the bill a little bit or tinker with it, or work with another member on a bill. My goal is to make sure we do something. That’s what I’m working toward.”
Asked if the bill might be put into law in time for the November 2004 elections, Bradley was skeptical, “There’s a chance, I’m not counting on it. It’s less likely that it might be something that would matter in the presidential election. My concern candidly is that this becomes much more of an issue during the next local election cycle. I like to see us do something as soon as possible I’m a realist about how things operate up here. I’m not going to say it can definitely be done this year, but I’d really like to see that we do something hopefully in time for the next set of local elections. That’s where those things are most important.”
“This last year there were a number of races that were close that had broken machines throughout the state. It’s not a unique problem. There are elections that arem’t that close that had broken machines that don’t matter.”
I’m ironing out some details with the Committee on Elections right now to see if we can get some consensus. There are some, who for instance want have a right to jury trial which we do have in some special proceedings. I may have to make some changes there. Some minor changes to the time frames. (Some would want 10 days after the recanvus, others 20 days. I’m working to get something this year.”
“I’m very open minded as far as those types of things. I think the most important things are: we want to be clear that there is a right to call a new election in a general election, and we want to make that the standard for doing that though is a very high standard.”
Queried as to what that standard might be, Bradley said: “Here’s the thing. We don’t want judges deciding elections for us which is why I think we prefer not to have judges declaring winners. We want to make judges are held to a fairly high standard before they can disrupt the election results. I think there was a consensus among those I spoke to that the standard of clear and convincing evidence was the best standard.”
