| SDNY Judge Vyskocil Declines
To Put AOC Challenger On Ballot With Invalid
Signatures
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
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Source
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
May 15 – In a challenge in the
Bronx - Queens Congressional
District represented by
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
Scherie Murray sued the New
York State Board of Elections
for cutting the time to gather
signatures to appear on the
ballot.
On May 15
U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of New York
Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil held a
hearing. Inner City Press
covered it.
Judge Vyskocil
asked New York State's lawyer,
Do you agree that the
Constitutional issues could
not have been raised in the
state court
proceeding?
The NYS lawyer said no, and
cited a Second Circuit case,
"on res judicada grounds."
Judge
Vyskocil continued, She's
saying her right to be on the
ballot has been burdened...
They are asking me to direct
that she be included on the
ballot.
Another
defense lawyer said, I don't
think there's any basis for
that, when they collected zero
valid signatures here. Given
the COVID pandemic, the
signature requirement was
changed.
Judge Vyskocil asked, Why not
just eliminate the need for
wet signatures?
The
defense lawyer replied, The
Executive Order was in March,
I don't know if electronic
signatures were available
then... They sat on their
rights. The claim is barred -
he cited a Discover Bank case
from 2009 about when cases
can't be removed from state
court.
Next
Judge Vyskocil was told how
difficult it would be to
include Murray on the ballot,
that testing will begin May
18. "We have to test the
ballot scanners, for this
district, in the Bronx and
Queens, 10 or 15 sites."
Murray's lawyer said, We did
not raise any Constitutional
issue in our complaint, only
in our memo of law, to let the
state court know we were going
to go Federal.... The decision
wasn't based on the
subscribing witness being of
another party.
Judge Vyskocil said, I am
going to rule now. Long
standing principles of
preclusion may be at issue in
this case. But that's for
another day... The
government's minimizing
contact, by shortening time
for collecting signatures, was
reasonable, and narrowly
tailored. All of her
signatures were invalidated
for reasons upheld by Justice
Carter in the state court
proceeding. The Court also
observes that the timing of
this application belies any
claim of urgency, needed for a
TRO. So the motion for a TRO
is denied. We'll follow this
with a written ruling. If
anyone orders the transcript,
please file it on the docket.
The case is
Murray v. Cuomo, et al.,
20-cv-3571 (Vyskocil).
***
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