Appellate court orders New York to hold presidential primary, state will drop appeal

ALBANY — An appellate court has upheld a ruling that will compel New York to hold a Democratic presidential primary on June 23.

The state will not appeal further, meaning the contest is now guaranteed to be held.

“We have decided that four judges have spoken and the Board has a heavy workload ahead of itself in order to pull together dealing with the primary election during this public health emergency,” state Board of Elections Democratic Chairman Doug Kellner told POLITICO after speaking with fellow Democratic Commissioner Andy Spano. “We’re going to focus our efforts on addressing all of the issues needed to run the election.”

New York’s budget gave Kellner and Spano the power to remove presidential candidates from the ballot if they have suspended their campaigns. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders subsequently dropped out of the race, and they removed everybody except for former Vice President Joe Biden. As a result, the primary — which had already been delayed from April 28 to June 23 — was canceled.

But former presidential candidate Andrew Yang quickly sued over the decision. He was eventually joined by Sanders and his supporters, and a trial-level court ruled two weeks ago that the contest should be held.

In a brief decision issued Tuesday morning, the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit affirmed the lower court’s findings.