Democrats across the state have been promoting something named "Golden Day" on October 26th. It is called "Golden Day" because voters can both register to vote and vote on the same day. This is despite the New York Constitution clearly stating in Article II Section 5 that “registration shall be completed at least ten days before each election.”
How did this happen and is it against the New York Constitution?
Election law expert Joe Burns, partner at Holtzman Vogel, certainly thinks so.
Burns says, “The voters of New York State explicitly rejected same-day voter registration in 2021. New Yorkers of all political stripes defeated the amendment to the state constitution. It was defeated in "red" counties and "blue" counties and in rural, suburban, and even urban New York. The people of New York spoke clearly in 2021: commonsense election safeguards such as the state constitution's ban on same-day voter registration must remain in place.”
In 2021, Democrats tried to make a wide array of changes to New York’s voting rules by changing the state’s Constitution. To change the Constitution, the people must pass the referendums and the voters soundly rejected these efforts. Efforts to change the state Constitution to create same-day voter registration (56% against) and no-excuse absentee voting (55% against) all failed.
These changes would have opened up New York’s voting to potential fraud.
Jerry Kassar, Chairman of the New York State Conservative Party, says, “We do not support same-day registration for fraud reasons, and we do not support mail-in voting for fraud reasons. It is a manifestation of a potential issue of fraud and illegitimacy that they are baking into the boards of elections.”
“Our state Court of Appeals has consistently held that the state constitution is the voice of the people of New York. After all, it may only be amended through a vote of the people. By flouting the state constitution's provision on same-day voter registration, "Golden Day" undermines the will of the people of New York,” says Burns.
Burns added that "by allowing an individual to register to vote on the first day of early voting and vote on that same day, the Election Law permits the state constitution's prohibition on same-day voter registration to be circumvented.”
Kassar says, “This measure lets the horse out of the barn.” Boards of Elections will check your enrollment after Election Day – after you have voted. “They'll check whether you voted legitimately, so an illegal alien, if they were to walk in there, they would be allowed to vote, but they would lose their vote, in theory, after election day,” if the Boards do their job 100% correctly every time. Otherwise, illegal votes will get through.
Kassar noted that same-day registration and voting clearly violates the spirit of the New York Constitution and the courts will no doubt get involved at some point.
After the failure of these measures in 2021, if Democrats want to take another stab at passing them, they have to pass them in two consecutive legislative sessions. The Constitution is hard to change on purpose. It is a slow and deliberative process on purpose. Political winds can change on a whim, but the people cannot be governed on whims – there has to be a founding and steady document that governs the state – and the country, too.
The process of having to pass two consecutive legislatures before a change can be made to the Constitution builds in time for deliberation, argument, public education, and research on the measures and how they will affect the state and its residents. Life would be chaos if the Constitution were easy to change and was changed regularly. No one would know what is and isn’t allowed depending on who was in power at any point in time.
Why is it that despite the constitutional provision that same-day registration and voting are prohibited in New York, how is it happening?
While technically there is not a "Golden Day" written into the state’s election law, there is a quirk in the voting schedule that creates this day. "Golden Day," October 26th, is a happenstance where the first day of early voting coincides with the last day of registration for the general election.
Letitia James, NY’s Attorney General, a sworn enemy of former president Donald Trump, is promoting "Golden Day" and urging voters to take advantage of it.
Burns, and other election experts, firmly believe that Golden Day stands in direct opposition to the New York Constitution. Whether it will be tested in court is something we will have to wait and see. After the referendum that removed the 10-day window between registering to vote and voting failed, Article II Section 5 of New York’s Constitution remains unchanged and same-day registration and voting remain against the law.
New York’s Democrats, if challenged in court, will likely claim that they have not violated the state’s constitution based on what they claim "voting" actually means. Are you voting when you cast your ballot or are you voting when the ballot is counted?
Most commonsense voters would say they are voting when they cast their ballot. Those in favor of same-day registration and voting may claim that a voter isn’t actually voting when they vote, but rather they are voting when their ballot is counted. And since the ballot will not be counted on the day of registration, they are not violating the law. This argument parses common sense in ways that stretch the recognition of the act of voting beyond any reasonableness. You might say, “It doesn’t pass the smell test.”
It appears that Governor Kathy Hochul, the Democrat-controlled Attorney General’s office, and the Democrat-controlled state Senate and Assembly are taking a page from the Biden-Harris administration playbook and going forward with knowingly anti-Constitutional efforts and just waiting to see if anyone sues. Biden-Harris has taken this approach to a number of issues, including the widely unpopular "Student Loan Bailout" scheme.
This approach to governance is decidedly not governance at all and sits in the murky waters of constitutional chaos. It forces those in New York, and countrywide, who want to protect the Constitution to organize and spend enormous amounts of money and time to take their government to court. Those in power who wish to subvert the constitution take the bet that those efforts won’t be successful or will at least take a lot of time and money – perhaps dissuading future challenges. None of this would be necessary if those in elected positions followed the rules set out in the Constitutions of New York, the United States, or any other state.