In recent years, the left has been surging in the Empire State, and the state’s anti-left Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, is doing his damnedest to put an end to that. Part of that surge is due to the Working Families Party, a progressive organization that has provided crucial campaign infrastructure—precinct walkers, phone banks, mailings, social media—to such progressive Democrats (which it cross-endorses on its own ballot
lines, since New York law has long permitted that) as soon-to-be Congressmen Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones, and the half-dozen liberal state senators who two years ago ousted nominally Democratic incumbents who caucused with the Republicans, thereby giving the GOP control of the state senate.
Resentful of this push to the left, Cuomo’s commissioners changed the rules for third parties this year. Previously, to retain its ballot line, those parties needed to get at least 50,000 votes in at minimum one statewide contest. This year, that threshold has been raised to 130,000 or 2 percent
of the statewide vote, whichever is higher.
Which is to say that if New York liberals and socialists want to keep a crucial partner in the drive to create a more progressive state in the game, they need to vote Biden/Harris on the Working Families Party’s ballot line. Under New York law, those votes will be added to the ticket’s vote on the Democratic line, so such votes won’t be spoilers, as was the Green Party Florida vote for Ralph Nader in 2000. For New Yorkers who want a more equitable and humane state, voting WFP is a necessity this year.
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