New York cancels Democratic presidential primary over pandemic concerns

On Monday, the New York State Board of Elections announced they were canceling the June 23 Democratic presidential primary. The state will still go ahead with congressional and state-level primaries on that date, however, turnout is expected to be significantly lower without presidential contestants on the ballot. 

Board Commissioner Andrew Spano reasoned that the risk of increasing the spread of the virus was not worth having "anyone on the ballot just for the purpose of issues at the convention." 

The Wall Street Journal got ahold of a letter written by a lawyer for the Sanders campaign to the state's Board of Elections asking them not to cancel the primary. "Senator Sanders has collaborated with state parties, the national party and the Biden campaign, to strengthen the Democrats by aligning the party's progressive and moderate wings. His removal from the ballot would hamper those efforts, to the detriment of the party in the general election," read the letter.

"What the Sanders supporters want is essentially a beauty contest that, given the situation with the public health emergency that exists now, seems to be unnecessary and, indeed, frivolous," said board co-chairman Douglas Kellner.

The state election board was given the power to cancel the primary by a recently passed provision in the New York budget, which allows the board to remove candidates who have suspended or terminated their campaign from the ballot. 

"It just makes so much sense given the extraordinary nature of the challenge," party chair Jay Jacobs said last week about canceling the presidential primary. 

Governor Andrew Cuomo said that he did not request the cancelation.