NY closer to lowering petition signature requirement for local candidates

The sponsors of legislation to temporarily ease the signature requirement for candidates in local elections this year hope Gov. Andrew Cuomo will take quick action when the measure is sent to his office in the coming days. 

In January, the state Legislature passed — and Cuomo signed — a package of election reforms. One of the bills moved the state and local primary to the fourth Tuesday in June. While the goal of that legislation was to consolidate the federal and state primaries in presidential and midterm election years, it also resulted in the local primaries being moved beginning this year.

"We realized when we heard from all of our election commissioners and the local parties that the timeline in 2019 was really compressed by this because we had moved the primary to June," May said in a phone interview. "This seemed like a really logical fix for that for this year."