§ 128. Saving clause. a. If the districts described in this article do
not carry out the purposes thereof, because of unintentional omission;
duplications; overlapping areas; erroneous nomenclature; lack of
adequate maps or descriptions of political subdivisions, wards, or other
divisions thereof, or of their boundary line; street closings, changes
in names of streets, or other changes of public places; alteration of
the boundary or courses of waters or waterways, filling in or lands
under water, accretion or other changes in shorelines; or alteration of
courses, rights of way, or lines of public utilities or other
conditions, then the state board of elections, at the request of any
person aggrieved thereby, or any candidate affected thereby shall, by
order, correct such omissions, overlaps, erroneous nomenclature, or
other defects in the description of districts so as to accomplish the
purposes and objectives of this article.

b. In promulgating such orders, the state board of elections, in
addition to achieving equality in the population of districts and
insuring that all areas of the state are completely and accurately
encompassed in such districts, shall be guided by the following
standards:

(1) Gaps in the description of any district shall be completed in a
manner which results in a total description of that district consonant
with the description of adjacent districts and in complete contiguity of
districts.

(2) Areas of the state included within the descriptions of more than
one district shall be allocated to the district having the lowest
population.

(3) Areas of the state not included within the descriptions of any
district shall be allocated to the adjacent district having the lowest
population.

(4) In the event that the area subject to corrected description or
allocation as provided in paragraph one, two or three of this
subdivision is of such size or contains such population that its
inclusion as a unit in any district would result in substantial
disparity in the size, shape or population of such district, then the
state board of elections may allocate portions of such area to two or
more districts.

(5) In any allocation of area or correction of descriptions made
pursuant to this section, the state board of elections shall, consistent
with the foregoing standards, preserve the contiguity and compactness of
districts and avoid the unnecessary division of political subdivisions.

c. Copies of such orders shall be filed by the state board of
elections in its own office and in the office of the affected boards of
election. A copy of each such order shall also be filed by the state
board with the legislative bill drafting commission to facilitate it in
performing its functions under section seventy-b of the public officers
law. In addition, a copy of such order shall be served upon the person
or candidate, if any, who instituted the application for such an order.
The state board of elections may adopt reasonable rules regulating the
procedure for applications for orders under this section in the manner
of serving and filing any notice or copy of orders relating thereto.

d. Upon the filing of such an order, the description of any affected
district shall be deemed to have been corrected in the manner provided
in such order to the full extent as if such correction had been
contained in the original description set forth in this article.

e. In furtherance of effectuating the provisions of subdivision d of
this section, the legislative bill drafting commission, upon receipt
from the state board of elections of an order promulgated pursuant to
subdivision b of this section, and upon the approval of the temporary
president of the senate and the speaker of the assembly, shall cause the
description of a senate district or assembly district altered pursuant
to any such order to be revised accordingly within its data base of the
laws of the state of New York so that such altered district may be
contained in a publication of the state law and be certified to as a
correct transcript of the text of law relating thereto such district in
the manner authorized by section seventy-b of the public officers law.