New York Attorney General Letitia James will be granted “unprecedented” power over the state’s election before the critical November presidential race.
The anti-Trump Democrat prosecutor’s new powers will come into effect this weekend.
However, legal experts are raising the alarm over the “big effect it’s going to have” on the upcoming presidential election.
James, who ran her own election campaign on a pledge to “get Trump” on unspecified charges, has spent the last couple of years targetting the 45th president with politically motivated cases.
Earlier this year, she secured a conviction against President Trump in a phony civil “fraud” trial that sought to bankrupt him with a $454 million fine.
Now, the career Democrat will have widespread power over the election that Trump is running in.
Among those raising the alarm is election attorney Joseph T. Burns, a partner at the law firm Holtzman Vogel.
“Nobody is really talking about it or what a big effect it’s going to have,” Burns warned in a statement.
“But it’s interesting because, look, there’s a lot of bad stuff that happens in New York when it comes to the elections and everything else, but this strikes me as being particularly bad.
“And it’s certainly quite a power grab by the attorney general as well.”
In 2022, Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul signed the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York into law.
Under the law, a preclearance requirement is set to take effect on September 22.
The new rule requires certain jurisdictions in the Empire State to request preclearance from the attorney general or a designated court to make election-related decisions.
Those decisions range from changing the hours of early voting to culling deceased residents from a voter list, Burns said.
Burns published an op-ed about the law in the New York Post this week.
He is warning that the new law hands James “unprecedented power over election processes in some of the most hotly contested congressional districts in the nation, including those on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley.”
The upcoming requirement has flown under the radar, Burns said.
“Nobody’s talking about. It’s pretty remarkable,” he said.
“The new rule upends the system of constitutionally mandated, bipartisan election administration that has served New York’s voters ably for generations,” Burns wrote in his op-ed.
“The law requires certain counties, cities, towns, villages, and school districts to get the blessing of the AG or a designated court before making election-related or voting-related changes.”
The new rule covers massive jurisdictions such as New York City and nine counties on Long Island.
It includes America’s largest township of Hempstead and other areas known as “covered entities” under the requirement.
The jurisdictions are determined by a handful of factors, including arrest rates for residents of “protected classes” and whether a jurisdiction committed civil rights or voting rights violations in the last 25 years, Burns said.
Burns cited documents from James’ office last year that detailed the rules.
The election legal expert says there are “four triggers” that label a jurisdiction a “covered entity.”
Citing the 2023 document published by James’s office, Burns said:
“Any political subdivision which, within the previous 25 years, has become subject to a court order or government enforcement action based upon a finding of any violation of this title, the Federal Voting Rights Act, the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution or a voting-related violation of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
Burns gave an example of Erie County, which is considered a “covered entity” under the new rules.
The jurisdiction was hit with a court order involving the 14th Amendment about a decade ago.
“You think, ‘Wow, this sounds really sinister,’” he said of the 2014 court order.
“‘They’re probably doing something. They’re disenfranchising a minority.’”
“No, not at all,” Burns said of the case.
“What happened was the county executive and the county legislature couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan.
“Something like that would put a local government under preclearance.
“It isn’t just bad policy, because it undermines the bipartisan nature of the boards of elections.
“Which, again, they’re not perfect, there’s so many inefficiencies.
“But by and large, in this day and age where people are so concerned about election integrity, what’s better than having both sides have a stake in the outcome, both sides wanting to and needing to make sure that elections are run smoothly and fairly?
“And now you have a partisan elected official stepping in to essentially have a veto power over our boards of elections,” Burns said.
Under New York’s Constitution, elections are run by bipartisan boards that equally represent the Republican and Democrat parties.
“One side watches the other, and both parties have a stake in ensuring that elections run smoothly — even in jurisdictions heavily dominated by one party or the other, like New York City,” Burns wrote in his op-ed.
“It’s not a perfect system, and it certainly has its inefficiencies.
“But it successfully preserves voter confidence.
“The preclearance rules of the state VRA, however, undermine this constitutionally mandated system of bipartisan election administration,” he added.
However, as she proved with her lawfare attacks this year, James is a hyperpartisan Democrat who will do whatever it takes to harm Trump.
Burns said it’s possible the new rule, which will go into effect roughly 40 days before the presidential election, could cause some issues at the polls this year.
“What’s going to happen if, God forbid, an early voting site or an Election Day poll site… and a pipe breaks and it floods and it’s unusable, or there’s a fire in the facility and it burns down. They got to move it,” he said.
Local commissioners would then choose a new poll site before filing an application with the AG’s office.
Burns said he’s not arguing that the AG’s office wouldn’t swiftly approve the application, but rather it adds additional layers of paperwork and clearance to run an election.
“New Yorkers of all political parties and persuasions want elections to be run fairly, honestly and efficiently — and the state’s system of bipartisan election administration already serves voters well,” Burns wrote in his op-ed.
“Our elections — and the public’s faith in them — will not be improved by the AG’s meddling.”
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