Gov. Cuomo raised alarms Wednesday about the growing uncertainty surrounding New York’s election process, calling it a “big, complicated problem.”
Cuomo said Friday’s ruling by U.S. Judge Gary Sharpe, which moved the state’s congressional primary to June, has greatly compressed the election calendar and left the state little time to resolve the controversy over redistricting.
“So the longer you take to actually resolve the issues on the lines the shorter you are making the election season,” Cuomo told reporters after speaking to the New York State Association of Counties gathering at the Desmond Hotel.
“And that’s also I think really unhealthy for the body politic and for the election process,” Cuomo added.
Cuomo said short election periods were “highly problematic” because they give challengers little time to raise money and campaign.
“You talk about incumbency protection,” the governor said. “That’s probably the greatest incumbency protection…short election cycles so a challenger doesn’t have the time, literally to compete.”
Cuomo gave a big thumbs down to the notion of having three primary elections this year – which could happen if the Senate and Assembly don’t agree on a new date for state and local primaries – but did not say whether he would support moving the local races to June.
“I don’t think the taxpayers want to pay for three elections,” Cuomo said. “I don’t even think it serves the electoral process well. Who’s going to come out? You’d have much lower turnout. Who’s going to come out just for a congressional election.”
Cuomo continued to criticize the tentative district lines drafted by the Assembly and Senate, calling them “wholly unacceptable as written.”
“At this point, we need an overall resolution,” Cuomo said. ” It’s going to be the lines for this year. It’s how do we make sure this never happens again, and there are going to be court challenges and we have the added issue….You are abbreviating the election season.”
