The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit brought by Mike Martucci, candidate for 42nd State Senate District, that seeks to disenfranchise voters whose ballots were already validated by the local boards of elections. 

Mr. Martucci and his representatives have asked the court to throw out hundreds of ballots for spurious reasons, substantially delaying the election results, despite bipartisan teams at the boards of elections in Ulster, Orange, Sullivan, and Delaware counties having reviewed and verified their eligibility weeks ago. 

In this case, the NYCLU’s motion to intervene seeks to give voters an opportunity to defend their own ballots in court and to hold accountable those seeking to disenfranchise them without justification.  

The NYCLU, representing its own members as well as individual voters John Mellitt, John Burdick, and Theresa Logan, is asking the Delaware County Supreme Court to reject these challenges or, at least, to allow voters their constitutional and statutory right to notice of any curable defects in their ballots, such as mismatched or missing signatures, and an opportunity to cure those defects. 

Attorney(s)

Perry Grossman, Jordan Laris Cohen, Megan Sallomi, Terry Ding

Date filed

November 24, 2020

Court

Supreme Court of the State of New York County of Deleware

Case number

EF 2020-640