Republicans in New York are warning that a law relaxing the verification measures for mail-in ballots could result in fraudulent votes being cast in the upcoming election, which could determine the outcome of races that will decide which party controls the House.

The New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, is weighing whether to uphold a provision of a 2021 law that governs how election officials should handle a ballot if a board of canvassers is deadlocked on whether it is valid in the case Amedure v. New York.

Before the law was passed, a board of inspectors, comprising an equal number of “representatives of the two major political parties,” would examine the envelopes containing absentee or military ballots to determine if they were valid. 

A former congressman who represented New York, John Faso, told The New York Sun that under the old law, commissioners examining the ballot envelopes before they were opened might raise concerns if a voter’s signature varied significantly from his or her signature on file. If the officials could not agree on whether it was valid, it would be set aside until it could be reviewed by a judge. 

Under the 2021 law, if the officials cannot agree on whether the ballot is valid, they will “prepare such ballot to be cast and canvassed.” 

Mr. Faso says that under the new law, if there is a disagreement, the sides will “just count the vote anyway.” There is no “recourse” to challenge the ballot after it is counted.

In oral arguments, lawyers for Republicans argued before the Court of Appeals that the law could allow ballots without signatures to be counted if commissioners contacted the voters to correct the issues and did not hear back within the deadline to fix the errors.

Additionally, they suggested that under the law, a commissioner could disagree over whether a ballot was cast by someone who is registered to vote in another state or who is dead, and the ballot would be counted. 

However, lawyers for the state argued that while ballots that are cast cannot be challenged or reversed, observers of the process could go to court to halt the canvassing process if they witness “systemic corruption.” 

The law is an “insult to fair elections” in the state, a spokesman for the New York Republican State Committee, David Laska, says. 

In response to an earlier challenge to the law, the state senate deputy majority leader, Michael Gianaris, accused Republicans of trying to make New York “a laughingstock once again when it comes to our election process.” 

He said the law is designed to speed up the process of counting votes and ensure lawful votes are not being disqualified. 

Mr. Gianaris brushed off the ongoing challenge to the law, telling the Sun the case is a “waste” of time and money and an attempt by Republicans to “infringe” on New Yorkers’ basic constitutional rights.

Potential Impact on House Races

Democrats are targeting a trio of House seats in New York that Republicans won in 2022 in their bid to win the chamber back. 

Congressman Mike Lawler of New York’s 17th District won his election by fewer than 2,000 votes; Congressman Marc Molinaro of New York’s 19th District won his election by roughly 4,500 votes; and Congressman Anthony D’Esposito won his race by just shy of 10,000 votes.

An election forecaster, the Cook Political Report, lists those three races as toss-ups. Meanwhile, it lists New York’s 22nd Congressional District, where a Republican congressman, Brandon Williams, is seeking another term, as “leans Democrat.”

Those races could decide which party controls the House, and they could be ripe territory for challenges or scrutiny about the procedures for handling absentee ballots.

Studies have found that the chance of fraud associated with mail-in ballots is very low. Some issues with ballots, such as missing signatures, are not always due to fraud. Such mistakes could be the result of not reading the instructions on the mail-in ballot. 

Additionally, the national rejection rate of absentee ballots for such issues is relatively low. In 2022, the national rejection rate was 1.5 percent, and New York was in line with the national average.

However, in races where the margins of victory could be razor-thin, without the opportunity for concerns about ballots to be reviewed, questions about which ballots were counted in crucial elections could threaten to overshadow the results.

Indeed, two judges who dissented from a previous decision to uphold the law said it “has the potential to inhibit the rights of New Yorkers to cast their ballot by preventing objections to a ballot cast by someone else in their name.”

In a race like Mr. Lawler’s in 2022, where fewer than 2,000 votes out of nearly 300,000 total decided the election, the relaxed procedures for absentee ballots could lead to enough votes being cast that may have otherwise been rejected to swing the results. 

With such narrow margins in high-profile races, questions about which votes count could lead to prolonged fights over the results and efforts to contest the outcome.