West NY News

ALBANY, NY – Legislation sponsored by Senator George Borrello aimed at prohibiting the practice of ballot harvesting made significant progress today as it advanced through the Senate Elections Committee. This marks a first for the election integrity bill.

Senator Borrello stated, “Ballot harvesting is a practice that is incredibly vulnerable to abuse and that has been implicated in several known instances of election fraud. New York is one of only a handful of states that has no legal restrictions on this practice, which should concern everyone who feels election integrity is important.”

Ballot harvesting refers to the process where any individual can collect and return an unlimited number of mail or absentee ballots without oversight or a documented chain of custody.

The proposed legislation, S. 1116, would classify ballot harvesting as 'unlawful' and a class D felony except in cases where the absentee ballot was submitted on behalf of the voter by a family member, a caregiver with notarized consent, or an elections official, postal employee or delivery courier performing their legal duties.

Additionally, the bill stipulates that applications for absentee ballots must be submitted by a family member or a person authorized through written, notarized consent to submit the application on behalf of the voter.

Senator Borrello cited recent scandals involving ballot harvesting:

In November 2022, a Staten Island grand jury identified numerous instances of ballot harvesting fraud in a City Council race. The grand jury report released by Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon called for changes in state election law including requiring official government-issued ID to vote.

In December 2023, charges were brought against an individual by the Queens District Attorney for submitting falsified absentee ballot applications for the Democratic primary election in August 2022.

In January 2023, a former Rensselaer County election commissioner pleaded guilty to using voters’ personal information to illegally obtain absentee ballots in 2021.

“We’ve made conditions in New York State particularly ripe for election fraud with the recently enacted legislation that allows early voting by mail. This is going to expand the ballot harvesting opportunities in New York’s elections and along with it, the opportunities for bad actors to commit fraud. We can help safeguard this process by enacting my legislation which would end the ballot harvesting free-for-all,” said Sen. Borrello.

“The cornerstone of our representative democracy is that voters have confidence that our elections are fair and secure. Ballot harvesting dangerously undermines that confidence, which is why I will keep advocating for enactment of this measure,” Sen. Borrello concluded.