Special election ahead for Stefanik’s seat: What does that mean?

By Alex Gault | Watertown Daily Times
There will be a special election in northern New York early next year, when voters will select someone to represent the 21st Congressional District in the House, as the current officeholder Elise M. Stefanik enters the Trump administration as ambassador to the United Nations.
According to the timeline set out by state law, voters will head to the polls sometime in the spring, likely in April.
According to New York Public Officers Law, once the seat is officially vacated, Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul will have a 10-day window during which to officially call for a special election. Once that proclamation is made, the election must happen within 70 to 80 days of that date.
Special elections are almost always scheduled for Tuesdays, in keeping with electoral tradition.
Once the election is set, the state Board of Elections, and local boards, start setting up for the election, which operates almost exactly the way a general election does.
The state elections board will lay out a calendar specific to the special election — when candidate nominations and petitions to appear on the ballot should be completed and other dates such as the voter registration cutoff and mailed ballot deadlines.
As set by state law, voters have up to 10 days before the election to register to vote and be eligible for that election, and early voting must begin 10 days before the election and run for at least nine days.
There are no primary races. Instead, local party leaders work through a process, as dictated by their state party committees, to vet and select a candidate. That process can be undertaken by any recognized party in New York — Democratic, Republican, Conservative and Working Families parties. Those groups can choose to nominate a candidate, cross-endorse another party’s nominee or sit out of the race.
For the Democrats and Republicans, local party leaders say both parties will vet candidates and vote on them through a process laid out by their state party leadership. The process for both parties is essentially the same. Once candidates have been interviewed and presented to the party committee chairs for each of the 15 counties in the district, those chairs will vote for their preferred candidate.
The vote is weighted by the party’s membership proportion compared to the entire district. Counties with more registered Democrats or Republicans will have a stronger vote in their respective party nominations.
Independent candidates, who wish to appear on the ballot under their own party line rather than an established one, can petition to appear on the ballot in essentially the same way they would in a typical general election. To run in the upcoming special election for NY-21, an independent candidate would have to collect 3,500 signatures from eligible voters in the district who haven’t signed any other candidate’s petition to appear on the ballot.
Timelines vary slightly between special elections, but a special election set in April of this year in the 26th Congressional District gave independent petitioners 12 days from the first day of petitioning to when they were due to submit all 3,500 eligible signatures.
No timeline can be set until the vacancy proclamation is made, which will only come after Stefanik officially resigns from Congress. Her current term officially ends on Jan. 3, but as the winner of this year’s election she will be sworn in again as the district’s representative on that day.
A spokesperson for the congresswoman did not return a request for comment on when she plans to step down from her seat.
Stefanik handily won reelection to her NY-21 seat over Democratic newcomer Paula Collins.
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