On November 24, 2025, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE) sent a letter to the Co-Executive Directors of the New York State Board of Elections (NYSBOE) raising concerns that New York\u2019s voter registration practices conflict with both the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and New York State law.\u00a0 The letter details two primary areas of noncompliance regarding how New York registers voters.<\/p>\n
First, RITE argues that New York State\u2019s voter registration form conflicts with the requirements of HAVA.\u00a0 New York\u2019s voter registration form allows those registering to vote to provide either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of the registrant\u2019s Social Security Number (SSN).\u00a0 The form states that voters may give either number.\u00a0<\/p>\n
RITE argues, however, that this conflicts with the voter registration requirements of HAVA.\u00a0 HAVA requires that voters, when registering, provide their driver\u2019s license number.\u00a0 Only if a voter does not have a driver\u2019s license may the voter then provide the last four digits of his or her SSN when registering to vote.\u00a0 Because New York\u2019s voter registration form allows voters to choose freely between providing a driver\u2019s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security Number, RITE argues that New York is violating the mandates of HAVA.<\/p>\n
RITE also argues that New York\u2019s regulations on registering voters fail to comply with HAVA.\u00a0 According to RITE, New York\u2019s voter registration regulations violate HAVA by requiring that county Boards of Elections register applicants who provide neither a driver\u2019s license number nor an SSN, and who fail to affirm that they possess neither.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While HAVA permits the registration of applicants who actively affirm they possess neither number, RITE argues that HAVA explicitly prohibits processing applications where the required information is simply omitted. RITE alleges that New York\u2019s practice of approving these incomplete voter registration applications directly conflicts with the federal prohibition on accepting them.<\/p>\n
Finally, RITE proposes that the New York State Board of Elections fix these alleged violations of HAVA by altering the language used on New York\u2019s voter registration form and amending its regulations on the processing of voter registration applications.\u00a0 RITE also requests that the Board conduct an audit to determine how many nonconforming forms have been processed and notify registered voters who are missing required numbers to provide them immediately.<\/p>\n
RITE has requested a response from the New York State Board of Elections by December 8, 2025.<\/p>\n
Regardless of whether or not the NYSBOE agrees with RITE\u2019s arguments, RITE\u2019s letter signals that New York\u2019s voter registration law and regulations are likely to receive greater scrutiny in the months ahead.\u00a0 As the 2026 election season begins to take shape, candidates, party leaders, and political consultants would be wise to pay close attention to this matter to see if and how it is resolved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On November 24, 2025, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE) sent a letter to the Co-Executive Directors…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":406306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-406305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115616820992789741","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}