Trump makes New York ballot, but lawsuit looms to knock him off

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York Republican election officials declined Tuesday to keep Donald Trump’s name off the ballot amid a national fight over whether he should land ballot access.

But the Democratic state senator who represents Manhattan’s Trump International Hotel says he plans to file a lawsuit by the end of the day challenging the former president’s qualifications.

“These are unprecedented times, when a president of the United States incites an insurrection attempting to overturn the results of the democratic election in our nation,” said Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal. “We cannot let that stand.”

Hoylman-Sigal was the lead author of a Democratic letter to the state Board of Elections in December asking that they exclude Trump from the ballot for inciting the 2021 attacks on the Capitol. Colorado’s Supreme Court blocked Trump from running in that state a couple of weeks later, a decision that is currently being considered by the Supreme Court.

New York’s GOP elections commissioners met Tuesday morning to certify the ballot for the state’s April 2 Republican presidential primary. They declined to remove Trump’s name.

They had received “a bunch of correspondence” asking “us to remove [Trump] from the ballot,” said Commissioner Tony Casale.

But while they said they reviewed the requests, none followed the legally required steps for objecting to a candidate’s ability to run. That includes actions such as filing specific objections against candidates who have filed to run and notifying them that their qualifications are being challenged.

“These rules are in place to provide due process to all candidates,” GOP Commissioner Peter Kosinski said. “None of that has happened to our knowledge.”

But Hoylman-Sigal said he was prepped to move forward with a lawsuit by the end of Tuesday afternoon.

If the 14th Amendment language blocking candidates who engage in insurrection “isn’t to be applied to Donald Trump, it begs the question as to who it would be applied to,” he said.

The board did remove a couple of Republicans from the ballot, such as Florida businessperson David Stuckenberg, who they said did not meet the requirements of running nationally known campaigns.

Four Republicans made the ballot: Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and two who are no longer running — businessperson Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Ramaswamy and Christie will have the opportunity to get their names off the ballot if they submit certified requests to end their campaigns.

Those are due Tuesday, and while they have been reminded of that deadline in recent weeks, neither had sent the necessary paperwork as of midday.