One blue state is failing to enact sufficient voting safeguards and refusing to right its errors forward of November’s midterm elections, an election integrity watchdog warns.
Restoring Integrity and Belief in Elections (RITE), a nonpartisan group targeted on election safety, alleges the New York State Board of Elections (NYSBOE) stonewalled a request to repair the state’s voter registration type to adjust to federal voting legislation.
The watchdog despatched the NYSBOE a letter in late 2025 outlining a number of violations they claimed may undermine the state’s election integrity if left unaddressed.
After the board didn’t right a lot of the violations, RITE and Tenney are demanding the board hand over complete data and knowledge to determine extra shortcomings within the state’s voter registration system.
“Your lack of a response is troubling and disregards the necessity to guarantee public belief that New York is sustaining correct voter rolls as required by federal legislation,” they wrote in a letter to the NYSBOE earlier this week that was obtained by Fox Information Digital.
If the board doesn’t meet their Might 2026 deadline, RITE and Tenney say they’re ready to go to federal court docket to implement compliance with federal legislation.
The watchdog alleges two errors in New York State’s voter registration types that violate the Assist America Vote Act (HAVA).
First, New York State didn’t instruct people that they have to present their driver’s license data if they’ve one. It additionally continued registering people who didn’t present a driver’s license, the final 4 digits of their Social Safety quantity or a declaration that the applicant has neither, as required by federal legislation.
These errors have, partly, led to hundreds of thousands of New York voters offering incomplete data through the registration course of, making it harder for the state to precisely preserve voter lists, in keeping with RITE.
RITE and and Tenney additionally allege the board didn’t carry out a requested audit to determine what number of incomplete voter registration functions have been processed.
A 2022 report from the conservative Public Curiosity Authorized Basis discovered that at the least 3.1 million New York registered voters haven’t supplied a driver’s license or Social Safety quantity on their utility type.
“The legislation is evident: states could not settle for registration types that lack required figuring out data,” RITE President Justin Riemer mentioned in a press release. New York’s personal rules direct officers to do precisely that. This flagrant violation of an vital federal safeguard considerably erodes the integrity of New York’s voter registration system.”
“We’re dedicated to getting solutions concerning the breadth of the issue and making certain the state fixes it,” Riemer added.
Tenney, who’s chair of the Election Integrity Caucus, mentioned she has known as for an investigation into the NYSBOE since 2022.
“Transparency and correct voter rolls are important to sustaining public belief in our elections,” the New York Republican mentioned in a press release. “The individuals of New York deserve solutions, accountability, and full compliance with HAVA to make sure the integrity of each vote.”
The New York Metropolis Board of Elections system has additionally come underneath latest scrutiny for failing to enact sufficient safeguards.
One in every of its staff declined to dam a reporter who was posing as a noncitizen from making an attempt to register to vote, in keeping with video footage obtained by Fox Information Digital in February.
