7-116. Ballots; order of names on. 1. In printing the names of candidates on the ballot, the candidate or candidates of the party which polled for its candidate for the office of governor at the last preceding election for such office the highest number of votes, shall be row or column A or one and the candidates of the other parties shall be placed on such ballot in descending order of such votes.
2. The officer or board who or which prepares the ballot shall determine the order in which shall appear, below the names of party candidates the nominations made only by independent bodies. Such officer or board also shall determine the order in which shall be printed, in a section of such ballot the names of two or more candidates nominated by one party or independent body, for an office to which two or more persons are to be elected; provided, however, that any such candidate may, by a writing filed with such board or officer not later than one week after the adjournment of the convention or one week after the primary election nominating him, or otherwise not later than two days after the filing of the petition or certificate nominating him, demand that such order be determined by lot, and in that case such order shall be so determined, upon two days notice by mail given by such board or officer to each candidate for such office. The state board of elections shall perform the duties required by this subdivision in all cases affecting nominations filed in its office.
3. The officer or board with whom or which are filed the designations for a public office or party position shall determine by lot, upon two days notice by mail given by such board or officer to each candidate for such office or position and to the committee, if any, named in the designating petition, the order in which shall be printed on the official primary ballot, under the title of the office or position, the names of candidates for public office, the names of candidates for a party position to which not more than one person is to be elected, and the groups of names of candidates for party position where two or more persons are to be elected thereto and any petition designates two or more persons therefor, provided, however, that whenever groups of names for more than one party position are designated by the same petition, the order in which they shall be printed on the official primary ballot shall be determined by a single lot. Candidates for delegate or delegates and alternate delegate or delegates to conventions designated by the same petition shall, for the purpose of this subdivision, be treated as one group. The names of candidates, if any, for a party position to which two or more persons are to be elected, who are designated by individual petitions and not in a group shall be printed below such group or groups, in such order between themselves, as such officer or board shall determine by lot upon the notice specified in this subdivision. The names within a group of candidates designated for party position by one petition shall be printed in the same order in which they appear in the petition, unless they appear in a different order on different pages of the petition, in which case their order within the group shall be determined by such officer or board by lot upon the notice specified in this subdivision. Candidates for members of a state committee designated by a single petition shall, for the purposes of this subdivision, be treated as one group. However, the notice to a committee of the drawing need not be mailed to more than five members, if there be that many, and as to offices or party positions for which designating petitions are filed with the board of elections of the city of New York the notice shall be given to the committees only.
3-a. The state board of elections shall prescribe the method, or two or more alternative methods, for making the determinations by lot required by subdivisions two and three of this section. Each county board of elections shall adopt one of such methods at least ninety days before any election to which such method shall apply.
4. If a vacancy in a designation or nomination be filled after the making, in the manner provided in this section, of a determination of the order in which the names of candidates for the office or position are to be printed, the name of the candidate designated or nominated to fill such vacancy shall be printed in the place so determined for the original candidate.
5. The titles of public offices shall appear on ballots for primary elections in the same consecutive order that they will appear on the general election ballot. The titles of the party positions shall appear in the following order: member of state committee, assembly district leader, associate assembly district leader, members of county committee in the city of New York, delegate or delegates to conventions, alternate delegate or delegates to conventions, and members of county committee in counties outside of the city of New York. Where, pursuant to the rules of the county committee, the party position involved is that of assembly district leader or associate assembly district leader for a part of an assembly district, such part shall be so indicated in the title on the ballot.
6. In the city of New York, the ballot on the voting machine for primary elections shall conform to the following additional provisions:
The names of the candidates designated for such public office or party position in the primary of a party shall be placed under the title of the office or position in the alphabetical order of their surnames, in the first or lowest numbered assembly district and election district of any political unit or subdivision within a county. If candidates' surnames are identical, their given or first name shall determine their order. Thereafter the names shall be rotated by election districts by transposing the first named candidate to the bottom of the order at each succeeding election district, so that each name shall appear first and in each other position in an equal number, as nearly as possible, of the election districts and except, further, that where two or more candidates are to be elected to the same party position, the names of candidates for such a position which appear on the same designating petition shall be grouped together on the ballot in the order in which their names appear on the designating petition and the group rotated alphabetically in relation to other groups or individual candidates according to the surname of the first person on the designating petition of such group. Groups of candidates for delegate and alternate delegate, and groups of candidates for male and female delegate and male and female alternate delegate to the same convention designated on the same petition shall be rotated together alphabetically in relation to other groups or individual candidates according to the surname of the first person listed on such designating petition in the group of candidates for whichever of such delegate or alternate delegate positions will appear first on the voting machine. If the rules of a party committee provide for equal representation of the sexes among the members of a state committee elected from each unit of representation, elections for male and female members of such a committee from a single unit of representation shall be conducted as elections for two different party positions. Notwithstanding the provisions of this paragraph, if the board of elections has assigned numbers to the candidates for an office or position because of identical or similar names among such candidates, the names of such candidates shall be placed under the title of such office or position in the order of such numbers in such first or lowest numbered district, and the names shall not be rotated by election district. Such names shall appear in the identical order on each ballot in each election district.
County committee candidates or groups of candidates shall be printed within the first election district of each assembly district or part thereof, according to the priority of filing of designating petitions and they shall then be rotated by election district by placing the candidate or group of candidates designated in the same petition as the candidate or group of candidates which was printed first in an election district at the bottom of the order in the next succeeding election district in which a candidate or group of candidates designated in such petition appears on the ballot.
In cases where a name is added to or removed from the ballot by court order too late to make a complete adjustment to these requirements feasible, the name may be added at the bottom of the list of candidates in all election districts, or removed from the ballot in all election districts without changing the previously arranged order of other names and without invalidating the election. Any inadvertent error in the order of names discovered too late to correct the order of the names on the ballots concerned shall not invalidate an election.
Except where a contest or candidate is removed from the ballot by court order too late to make complete compliance with this paragraph feasible, the title of each public office or party position and the names of the candidates for such office or position appearing on any voting machine used for primary elections in the city of New York shall appear on such machine immediately adjacent to one another, either horizontally or vertically; and no blank spaces shall separate the names of candidates actually running for an office or party position on such voting machine, and no blank spaces shall separate any two such offices or positions which appear on such voting machine in the same column or row.
7. Whenever a county board of elections or the board of elections in the city of New York must conduct a primary election in the respective county or the city of New York in which separate contests for both male and female candidates for the same party position are to be printed upon the ballots, the respective county board of elections or the board of elections in the city of New York shall determine by lot whether to first print the contest for the male candidates or the contest for the female candidates. After such determination, the same order shall be used for all ballots printed by the board of elections for the entire county or city of New York and for all contests where there are elections separated by male and female candidates for the same party position.
Last modified: February 3, 2019