New York's Ballot Might Complicate Replacing Biden

New York is one of five states that use fusion voting.

It is impossible to miss the many megabits being spilled on whether or not President Biden should be replaced on the ticket. I lean yes. I lean with Harris, because it makes the funding, already cast ballots issue, and ballot access issues simpler. Especially with Ohio being extra pissy this year.

That said.

New York is one of a handful of states that use what is know as fusion voting, which is essentially where one candidate will appear on multiple party lines on the same ballot.

[This is the 2020 ballot from the Albany area in New York. An interesting thing is the race for DA is David Soares, who is currently in hot water, is being challenged from the left in Albany County, and has no Republican challenger, or from the right at all.]

This has a couple of benefits. First, it gives us New Yorkers a way to support third parties, without drawing support away from the major candidate, thus avoiding the spoiler effect of voting third party.

Second, it helps third parties access the ballot, because if they reach either 2% of the vote, or 130,000 (whichever is greater), they get automatic access. This is likely the case with Matthew A. Toporowski for Albany County District Attorney, who is running on a third party ticket against an incumbent Democrat, cross-endorsed by the Independence party.

This is a third party candidate, running a two-way race against an incumbent major party candidate, and it’s thanks, in part, to fusion voting.

Sigh, but this is somewhat reductive. The reality is a bit of an incomprehensible mess.

[Update: From here up to the picture of the ballot, I massaged the text a little bit to draw attention to the uniqueness that can happen on a Fusion ballot. This turned out to be a good example of one of the benefits of the approach in action.]

This is how we do our elections. Now we have a very non-zero chance that we are going to change our major-party candidate as the primaries are underway. New York already held its primary, which ran from June 15th-23, 25th. Many other states have voted; I can’t list all of the times the 34-count Sexpest Shartfactory only scored 80% running unopposed.

With this context and background before us, what happens when we replace President Biden on the ticket (assuming that’s what the party chooses to do)?

What happens to the other parties that have chosen to endorse President Biden?

Are they going to have to go back to square one and redo the entire nomination process?—which I do not understand completely. I am not an expert. I was just aware of what our ballots looked like and though through what it might mean to replace a candidate downstream.

For what it’s worth, here are the deadlines for the 2024 New York State political calendar. Aside from the primay having passed, I think that might be the only thing that’s passed, but I’m not an expert, and don’t know what all of these things are. The best I can do is find the best sources I can present them in an intellectually honest way to the best of my ability.

I thank anybody, and everybody who has found themselves here for reading, and I hope to read your comments, and substacks going forward.

-Ken