NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A3412
SPONSOR: Lavine TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the election law, in relation to prohibiting the
suppression of voters
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this act is to create a new electoral crime of voter
suppression, punishable as a misdemeanor.
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section one names the bill the "deceptive practices and voter
suppression prevention act."
Section two amends article seventeen of the Election Law by adding a new
section 17-151, creating the crime of deceptive practices in relation to
elections. Under this bill, knowingly spreading deceptive information
aimed at interfering with others' right to vote would become a misdemea-
nor offense.
Section three amends the Election Law by making it a crime to suppress
the voting rights of others, or to force them to vote for or against a
particular candidate.
Section four amends the Election Law by stating that any individual
convicted of the misdemeanor of deceptive practices a second time shall
be guilty of a class E felony, and for any subsequent convictions of the
same crime the individual shall be guilty of a class D felony.
Section five is the effective date.
JUSTIFICATION:
Voter suppression continues to impact the most at-risk New Yorkers every
election cycle, even well into the twenty-first century. While sometimes
subtle, the effort is often much more pronounced and widespread. With
recent advancements in technology, bad actors from anywhere in the coun-
try or the rest of the world are able to take easy actions to delib-
erately suppress the voting rights of individuals, especially those in
marginalized groups.
One example of these suppression tactics is when conservative actors
Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, based in Arlington, Virginia, sent out
robocalls to 85,000 individuals located in predominately minority commu-
nities in New York, Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in August 2020.
These robocalls contained misinformation regarding mail-in voting,
including that authorities would use information on absentee ballots to
track down arrest warrants or outstanding debt. In October 2020, these
bad actors were ordered by a federal court to call all 85,000 individ-
uals to correct their misinformation.
2023-2024 A8608 PASSED SENATE referred to elections
2021-2022:S1032 Stewart-Cousins- passed Senate in 2022
2019-2020:S5758 Stewart-Cousins- Referred to Elections
2017-2018:S2952 Stewart-Cousins- Referred to Elections
2015-2016:S2352 Stewart-Cousins- Referred to Elections
2013-2014:S676 Stewart-Cousins- Referred to Elections
2011-2012:S1009 Stewart-Cousins- Referred to Elections
2009-2010:S25548 Passed Senate
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.
