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St. Paddy’s Day bumps village voting

By Jim Planck

HUNTER — While there are some incorporated villages in New York State that hold their annual municipal election on the last Tuesday of March, the vast majority hold them on the third Tuesday of the month.

It is a pattern that is almost as old as NYS Village Law, and has been inviolate under the administration of the NYS Board of Elections year after year after year — until now.

The next round of village of elections in March 2009 will not be held on Tuesday, March 17, but has been officially bumped a day to Wednesday, March 18, because of a law the state passed back in 1998 — the last time St. Patrick’s Day fell on Village Election day.

Although a secular holiday, and not a legal one, there was apparently enough legislative will in Albany to pass a bill amending the NYS Election Law in both the Assembly and the Senate, with former Gov. George E. Pataki then signing it into law.

This apparently happened after and as a result of the conflicting days in 1998, making the upcoming 2009 March election the first time since the law’s passage that its effect will come into play.

The law states that whenever the election is to fall on the 17th, “the board of trustees of such village shall provide, by resolution … that such election shall be held on the 18th day of March.”

Accordingly, Hunter village officials have formally adopted the resolution switching the community’s 2009 election from the 17th to the 18th.

Hunter Mayor William Maley, who is of Irish heritage and typically runs on an independent nominating petition, afterward noted that back in the 1998 election he successfully ran for re-election as a Village Trustee on the Shamrock Party, in deference to the day it was being held on.

In lamentation, he indicated he now won’t be able to do that this time.

By passing the resolution, however, the village avoided several perhaps unclear areas of state law regarding that change — the initial one being the timeline for adopting it.

As noted in an instructional publication of the New York Conference of Mayors, “The Election Law is silent as to when the board of trustees must adopt this resolution,” meaning the law does not address the issue.

“However,” states NYCOM, “it is recommended that the resolution be adopted prior to Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008,” the deadline for publishing other regular notices regarding the election.

But the question then arises what happens if a village doesn’t adopt and publish or post the resolution?

The NYCOM publication states “the election will not be invalidated,” but adds that any proposition on it would be void, and cites a specific section of Election Law — Sect. 15-104(1)(b) — for the election not being invalid.

However, the amendment that created the St. Patrick’s Day change appears to countermand that, and says that exact section of Election Law does not, in fact, apply, and that if the resolution is not published or posted, that its content — ostensibly the revised date of the election — is not then in effect.

It states, “Notwithstanding (Despite) the provisions of [Sect. 15-104(1)(b)], any provision of a resolution adopted pursuant to (the St. Patrick’s Day amendment) shall be effective only if such provision is specifically published as provided by (Election Law).”

In short, it says if it’s not published or posted, the resolution switching days does not take effect.

So if the resolution is not in effect because it wasn’t adopted and published or posted — how does that affect or not affect which day the election is held on?

On the one hand, it would seem that without the resolution, the election has to stay on Tuesday the 17th, but the St. Patrick’s Day amendment seems to counter that as well.

It specifically directs that a village board “shall” — not “may” — adopt the necessary resolution, making it so the election “shall” — again, not “may” — be held on the 18th.

The state intentionally uses the term “shall” whenever it wants no leeway or discretion in requiring something, and uses “may” when it leaves the option open to the lesser governments under it.

Given the seemingly contradictory content of the law, however, the question also arises that if it was the state’s intent to mandate the switch every time there was a conflict between St. Patrick’s Day and Village Election Day, why did it not just do so, avoid any requirement for a village resolution, and simply use the standard annual notices already required to inform the electorate concerning village elections.

Ironically, neither the federal government, New York State, nor most municipalities have passed any statute designating St. Patrick’s Day a legal holiday, so the basis for the change is also interesting.

St. Patrick’s is only a legal holiday in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, the British territory of Montserrat in the Caribbean Sea, and scattered U.S. locations, the primary one being the City of Boston.

Boston’s designation, however, stems from the fact that it was on March 17, 1776, that the Continental Army forced the British out of Boston, and in 1901 the city’s Mayor officially recognized “Evacuation Day” as a legal holiday, astutely embracing St. Paddy’s at the same time.

Back in New York State, however — like any law being used for the first time — it will undoubtedly require village’s across the state to untangle the questions of its usage as they approach the March elections.

The status of three other villages in Greene County — Coxsackie, Athens, and Tannersville — regarding the date change is still unclear.

To reach reporter Jim Planck, please call 518-943-2100, ext. 3324, or e-mail jplanck@thedailymail.net.

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