NY State Cancels Presidential Primary

I'm so pissed. My right to vote has been stolen by the NY Democrats on the Board of Elections (likely on order from Governor Cuomo despite his denials).

In an unprecedented move, New York has canceled its Democratic presidential primary originally scheduled for June 23 amid the coronavirus epidemic.

The Democratic members of the State’s Board of Elections voted Monday to nix the primary. New York will still hold its congressional and state-level primaries on June 23.

New York Democratic Party chair Jay Jacobs has said that the cancellation of the state’s presidential primary would mean a lower expected turnout and a reduced need for polling places.

In the midst of further revelations supporting the rape charge by Tara Reade against then Senator Joe Biden, the Democrats are doubling down. Nancy Pelosi and several prominent progressive members of Congress have chosen today to endorse Biden, while at the same time, canceling the NY primary. We could easily have done a primary by mail, but no, that would be too "unfair" to a man who was boosted into front runner status by Barack Obama despite all his baggage.

Biden has a history of lies, support for Republican and neoliberal policies, support for illegal wars and now credible allegations of rape. Not to mention he rarely speaks anymore in public due to what anyone can see is a severe cognitive decline into dementia. Instead, in his rare on air appearances, he has his wife, Jill Biden do all the talking while he stares blankly into the camera. He's unfit to be President, but that isn't stopping the Democratic Party establishment from doing everything possible to deny and ignore his many issues and problems as a candidate, especially one running against Trump. They don't care how obvious it looks. Crushing the progressive left is all they really care about. Well, mission accomplished.

It's time for a new party. Every Progressive should run for office as a Green, or an Independent, until we can get a new party up and running. Meanwhile, Dems in Congress, led by Speaker Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, Minority leader in the Senate, do next to nothing to help people suffering under the Covid-19 virus lock down. They just keep getting rolled by Trump and the Senate Republicans while pretending to be an opposition. The resistance should be renamed the Assistants.

We already knew Democracy didn't exist here in America, but for anyone on the fence this should be that final nail in the coffin.

As for me, I'm done with them. Voting Green from here on out until a better option appears. Right now we live in an inverted totalitarian state, where consent is manufactured by the corporate media and any dissent is marginalized and crushed. Meanwhile, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer during a global pandemic.

Frankly, people should be protesting in the streets as soon as the lock down is lifted. But we know that won't happen. I'm not sure what it will take for Americans to finally see the light and say enough is enough to the oligarchs that control our two major political parties, but it's clear we live in a failed state with the largest military on earth with more nukes than any sane world would permit. We are owned by billionaires, body and soul. People think Trump is bad? He's just the beginning if we continue down this path.

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dervish's picture

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18 users have voted.

"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

lotlizard's picture

* Blue No Matter Who

Maybe Tom Tomorrow will even help spin this in his comic strip to make Cuomo and the New York Board of Elections look good …

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15 users have voted.

easier to insure the results you want.

This is so disgraceful. My vocabulary is insufficient for the moment we find ourselves in.

I'm thinking an exorcism to expunge every trace of Beloved Bernie.

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11 users have voted.

NYCVG

longtalldrink's picture

Green Party's Presidential candidate on twitter.

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14 users have voted.

Well done is better than well said-Ben Franklin

wendy davis's picture

@longtalldrink

but howie's personal account is still up. i just checked for a café commenter on my recent '#DemExit & #GreenEnter' thread.

since tara reade's mother's call to the larry king show accusing biden surfaced, #DropOutBiden had been trending, but is now being shadow-banned.

the US: Democracy for Some™. and Exporting Democracy Abroad™.

on edit: his platform summary.

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13 users have voted.
gulfgal98's picture

has kept the down ballot races on the ballot? NY has ample time to institute vote by mail and thus would not deprive any voter of their right to vote for everyone listed on the ballot.

I voted by mail in Florida. The ballot was printed prior to several candidates dropping out of the race. The supervisor of elections included a separate notice informing voters of those candidates who had suspended their campaigns but their names remained on the ballot.

I will say this. Bernie has to bear some of the blame here for suspending his campaign so early before half the states had voted. That gave NY the excuse to call the election off.

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18 users have voted.

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

@gulfgal98 is that this was meant to help incumbent (ie centrist or non-troublemaker) Ds hold onto their jobs by holding down progressive turnout with Bernie not on the ballot.

It is a stupid move as Trump and his political hacks find a way to use it possibly as a flimsy rationale-precedent for some election shenanigans in Nov.

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11 users have voted.
boriscleto's picture

@wokkamile

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7 users have voted.

" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

EyeRound's picture

@gulfgal98 throughout the state because of down-ballot races. The NY Dem's "reasoning" on this cancellation is such a load of "argument by gibberish" that you don't even know where to start criticizing it. ("Prevent COVID-19 spread," but they're holding in-person-voting primaries in the most at-risk counties in the state.)

I believe that the Dem's figure they can just crush / ignore / eliminate the progressives and win in November anyway.

Here in my small, very conservative, NY town I'm getting hell for pointing out--to Democrats--what the NY Dem party is doing.

The Dem's know they need the progressive vote to beat Trump. They intend to get it by coercion, as they did in 2016. They won't tolerate what they think might be disobedience.

So any suspected deviance from "unity" engenders rage. Establishment Dems really are crazy-irrational!

Oh dear. I share Steven D's sentiments in the main.

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21 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@EyeRound

The Dem's know they need the progressive vote to beat Trump. They intend to get it by coercion, as they did in 2016. They won't tolerate what they think might be disobedience.

Never ByeDone has been twiddling on Twitter since before Bernie dropped out, but after this move by Cuomo they are out in force. But then democrats don't actually care if Trump wins again. I just wish more people would wake up and see how they have not been resisting Trump one bit. You'd think a political blog would pay attention to vote counts and see for themselves.

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14 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

gulfgal98's picture

@snoopydawg is considering a run for the Green party nom. If Ventura runs, he will siphon off a lot of Bernie voters if only to help the Green party exceed 5%. I have seen a lot of interest from Bernie (and most Tulsi supporters) supporters on Twitter in Ventura running on the Green ticket.

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12 users have voted.

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Sima's picture

@gulfgal98 I want Ventura to run, just to see him take down Trump (and Biden) in a debate. Of course, our 'open democracy' won't allow Ventura into a debate, I'm sure.

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2 users have voted.

If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so

gulfgal98's picture

@Sima I am inclined to vote for Ventura if he runs for two reasons. One, he is anti-regime change war which has been my primary concern because until we get out of these wars, we will never do anything of value for the people of this country. Ventura is also an environmentalist. I do not know much more about him on other issues, but on those two, he is better than either Trump or Biden.

Plus, he offers the opportunity to blow this whole charade of an election apart and expose it for what it is...corrupt. If it takes Jesse Ventura to wake people up, I am all for it.

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1 user has voted.

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Daenerys's picture

@gulfgal98 I'd vote for Ventura before I vote for either Biden or Trump. I don't remember much about Ventura's time as governor except pissing off lots of people by insulting religion and the "drunk Irishmen" who built the roads in St. Paul, and legalizing fireworks, heh. He didn't fuck things up as bad as Pawlenty did though, near as I can remember. That he is more a voice of reason these days says a lot.

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1 user has voted.

This shit is bananas.

gulfgal98's picture

@Daenerys

I'd vote for Ventura before I vote for either Biden or Trump.
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1 user has voted.

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

@EyeRound that all NYS voters shall receive a mail in option for this primary election.
The stated purpose of the election committee decision is to suppress voting numbers.
What utter BS the public health protection excuse that was given.
The NY democratic machine is using the Covid-19 crisis to try and maintain power.
Yes this is also about boosting a centrist corpra-dem challenger's chances against AOC.
I'm really upset that they think it's a good idea to take away my right to vote in this presidential primary!
I will be looking to sell property and get out of NY.
Stuck here for a while longer due to Ms. jbob's medical insurance situation.
I will be voting against several centrist Dems in the primary.

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12 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

using RT as a source, and yes, verify, then trust, but my experience (beyond op-eds) is that often their news is spot on.

Unnecessary & frivolous’ or blatant coronation? New York cancels Dems presidential primary to outcry by Sanders supporters, 27 Apr, 2020, RT.com (if the nine other candidates is so...)

Sanders’ supporters have cried foul.

New York Democratic election commissioners voted to remove Sanders and nine other candidates from the ballot on Monday, leaving Biden as the sole candidate for the party’s 2020 nomination and effectively canceling the primary altogether. A recently-passed state law permits the removal of candidates from the ballot if they suspend or end their campaigns.

Sanders and his supporters have pushed back against the decision, pointing out that the law was passed after Sanders qualified for the New York ballot and insisting it should not apply to him. While the Vermont senator suspended his campaign weeks ago and endorsed Biden, he vowed to continue collecting delegates in the hope of being able to pressure the party into adopting measures from his own platform during the nominating convention. New York has 274 delegates that would have been up for grabs.

Acknowledging that canceling the primary was “a very difficult decision,” Commissioner Doug Kellner nevertheless insisted it would have been “unnecessary and frivolous” to hold the vote given that Sanders had essentially dropped out. The other Democratic commissioner, Andrew Spano, admitted that “Sanders has run two times and [has] a significant amount of supporters that want to say something,” but implied the risk of spreading coronavirus outweighed their need to be heard.

Sanders’ supporters warned that while the candidate and many of his supporters had fallen in line behind Biden, silencing their voices might not end well for the party’s anointed pick. “Suppressing the Sanders vote in New York will again lead to attacks on the Party across the nation and harm the volunteer effort that our group and others are building for Joe Biden,” Our Revolution chair Larry Cohen wrote in a letter to the state Board of Elections on Sunday. Sanders' supporters had flooded the board with calls and emails in the hope of avoiding a primary cancellation.

more text and tweets follow.

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17 users have voted.

Democrats are the only party that suppresses its own voters.

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20 users have voted.
dervish's picture

to the convention if they refuse to have an election to allocate them. Handing them all to Joe without a primary is an insult to the electoral process.

Joe was hand-picked by donors, not so much the machine. The donors bought the machine, and above all else they wanted nobody to lead the ticket who would seriously challenge their privileged position. They'd rather have Trump than a leftist upstart.

It's time to burn down the DNC and send its donors packing.

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8 users have voted.

"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

snoopydawg's picture

@dervish

It is effing coronation which Biden doesn't actually have to put any work into winning the democratic primary, but instead just gets to be the winner by default.I read that he didn't even actually spend money in the states he won on Super Tuesday nor did he actually have staff there getting people to vote for him. And remember that the states that Joe won were called that day and even the day before while it took weeks for them to count the votes in the states that Bernie won. Utah declared he won 3 weeks after the primary. They warmed up this act with Herheinous last time when they rigged it against Bernie, but this time it's that on steroids.

Handing them all to Joe without a primary is an insult to the electoral process.

After the Iowa vote debacle people in other countries spoke out about how blatant it was that the vote process was rigged and they spoke about how appalled they were that the country that enforces elections laws in other countries would stoop to this. If any other country that was on our short list for regime change did this we would go in and remove the winner. As usual our hypocrisy is shining bright for all the world to see. I hope more will call it out.

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8 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Cassiodorus's picture

@dervish that Joe was handpicked by Barack Obama, friend of Republicans everywhere.

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1 user has voted.

"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Cassiodorus

and a lot of fingers in the cowpie.

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3 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.