New York City has rejected the bulk of the petition signatures submitted by a group pushing to scrap the city's closed party primaries in favor of an open, ranked-choice preliminary election, and the group is now suing over it. Unite NY says it filed 42,000 valid signatures backing a charter amendment that would let every registered voter, not just party members, cast a ballot in a nonpartisan preliminary election each June. The city disputes that count, saying the group actually filed 38,000 signatures total and that only 14,000 of them held up, with more than 23,000 disqualified.
Unite NY filed its petitions with the city clerk in July 2026, then filed a court challenge against the city clerk and the city's Board of Elections after the rejection, as first reported by Gothamist. The court filing asks a judge to review the group's petitions line-by-line, and Unite NY says it had engaged elections attorney Lawrence Mandelker to vet the signatures before they were submitted.
Anthony Thomas, speaking for the group, said the city is engaging in establishment politics and favoring political parties over voters who support open primaries. He added that the Board of Elections favors parties over the 1.1 million independents shut out of the city's current system.
Why the City Says the Petitions Fell Short
City officials invalidated the petitions based on a review conducted by the Board of Elections, the outlet's report notes. Michael McSweeney wrote that the petitions lacked the 30,000 valid signatures required under law, adding that the failure to meet that threshold rendered the petition invalid.
New York City's Corporation Counsel separately found the petitions invalid because they lacked a required financial plan for the proposed changes. The city also argued the amendment exceeds the city's local legislative authority and is impermissibly vague and misleading to voters.
New York's Closed Primary System and Who It Excludes
New York City's closed primary system permits only voters registered with the party holding a primary to vote, a restriction that shuts out more than 1 million registered voters unaffiliated with any party, 21.1% of the electorate and the second-largest voting bloc after Democrats, according to an April 2025 report from the NYC Campaign Finance Board. Nearly half of those unaffiliated voters are under 40, the board found.
Under Section 37 of the state's Municipal Home Rule Law, a citizen-led charter amendment petition needs at least 30,000 valid signatures, and the city clerk then has 30 days to notify the city council on whether a petition complies with statutory requirements, according to court records.
What Unite NY's Ballot Measure Would Actually Do
Unite NY's proposal would replace party primaries with a nonpartisan preliminary election open to all registered voters, using ranked-choice voting to narrow the field. The top three finishers would advance to the November general election, which already uses ranked-choice voting itself, per the outlet's report. The city's Board of Elections includes 10 commissioners, chosen by Democratic and Republican party leaders in each borough, though the board already runs nonpartisan special elections whenever seats become vacant between regular cycles.
A Pointed Comparison to Adams' 2025 Petitions
The dispute has drawn comparisons to how the Board of Elections handled former Mayor Eric Adams' 2025 reelection campaign petitions. A Gothamist investigation found those petitions contained numerous forged signatures, and the city invalidated other signatures for missing information, illegible handwriting or incorrect witnessing. But the board verified only whether enough signatures had been submitted on Adams' petitions and did not scrutinize them for authenticity, the outlet reported.
Mamdani's Charter Commission Takes Priority This Year
The timing complicates Unite NY's push. Mayor Zohran Mamdani's own Charter Revision Commission has already produced five questions for the November ballot, and city officials say those take priority over Unite NY's question this year, meaning the group's proposal could appear on next year's ballot instead if it otherwise meets the requirements.
That commission exists only because Mamdani prevailed in a legal fight over a rival commission created by Adams on his final day in office specifically to pursue open primaries. The Richmond County Supreme Court ruled on July 22, 2026 that Mamdani acted lawfully when he disbanded it, according to POLITICO, and the panel's legal team, led by Randy Mastro, dropped its court challenge in early August. Hoodline previously covered that panel's open primaries push before the mayor moved to shut it down.
New York City Is an Outlier Even as Voters Signal Support Statewide
Statewide polling suggests broad appetite for the kind of change Unite NY is proposing. A July 2026 survey of 1,667 registered voters conducted for Unite NY's Voter Empowerment Index found 68% of New York voters support open primaries, including 62% of Democrats, 64% of Republicans and 77% of unaffiliated voters, according to Unite NY. The same survey found nearly 60% of registered New Yorkers believe the state's political system is unhealthy, and 71% feel their vote doesn't affect who ultimately governs the state.
New York City would not be alone in opening up its elections. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston all conduct nonpartisan or open municipal elections, leaving New York City as a prominent outlier among major American cities, according to Independent Voter News. That outlet reported that Unite NY originally delivered more than 45,000 signatures to the city clerk when it filed on July 2, 2026, a total that differs from the city's own count of 38,000 signatures filed, of which only 14,000 were found valid. A similar fight played out in Buffalo, where the city's Charter Revision Commission voted on July 8, 2026 against advancing open primary and ranked-choice voting proposals, even though 80% of surveyed Buffalo voters wanted those options put to a vote, the same outlet found.
Albany Moves in the Opposite Direction
In August 2026, the Albany City Clerk certified a petition from the Ranked Choice Albany coalition to bring ranked-choice voting to city elections, forwarding the measure to the Common Council for possible placement on the 2027 ballot, according to City & State New York.
State Lawmakers Also Tightened Their Grip on Ballot Language
The fight also comes amid a broader shift in who controls ballot language in New York. Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill on June 5, 2026 shifting authority over the final wording of proposed state constitutional amendments from the bipartisan State Board of Elections directly to the state Legislature, according to CityLand.
City officials have offered little public comment on the Unite NY lawsuit. Vincent Ignizio declined to comment on the case, citing pending litigation, and the city clerk's office did not respond to a request for comment. Unite NY's proposal could still land on next year's ballot if it otherwise meets the legal requirements, though its immediate fate now rests with the pending court fight.
