PRESS RELEASE
After Side-Stepping Voters During Formation of Charter Commission, City Botches Ballot Question Submission by Missing Legal Deadline, Announces No Voter Education Plan Ahead of Early Voting, and Leaves Voters in the Dark
The Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee on Friday formally requested that the Saratoga County Board of Elections decline to certify the City Charter Review Commission’s proposed ballot question for the November 3, 2026 general election, as the question was filed nearly a month late and fails to tell voters what they would actually be voting on.
New York State Election Law required the ballot question to be transmitted to the Board of Elections (BOE) by August 3, 2026 — three months before the general election. Yet, the City chose not to transmit it until August 28, twenty-five days late. This fact is not in dispute: the City’s own letter to the BOE acknowledges that the deadline was “a date already past” when the filing was made.
In a responsive letter delivered to both County Election Commissioners on Friday, the Democratic Committee explained that no New York court has ever excused a late filing of this kind, and urged the Board to follow the plain text of the law it administers.
The Committee’s letter also details a second, independent defect: the question voters would see — “Shall the Saratoga Springs City Charter be amended as proposed by the Charter Review Commission?” — says nothing about what the charter amendments would actually do. State law requires a ballot question to indicate its subject matter in a clear and coherent manner, helping voters make an informed decision. The City’s proposed question does not mention that the proposal would restructure the City’s Human Resources, Information Technology, and Risk and Safety functions, strip the elected Commissioner of Accounts of the City Assessor role, and overhaul the City’s budget process.
“With early voting just weeks away, and no meaningful plan from the City to explain any of this to the folks being asked to approve these charter changes, Saratoga Springs voters deserve better,” said Ronald J. Kim, Chairman of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee, “and the law entitles them to better.”
“Saratoga Springs voters deserve better, and the law entitles them to better.”
– Ron Kim, SSDC Chair
The problems do not end there. The Commission’s filing states that these sweeping changes will have zero impact on the City’s budget — a claim that is hard to believe, given the dramatic restructuring of entire departments and the overhaul of the City’s budget process the amendments would impose, and even harder to debunk, given the lack of understandable, accessible public information or fiscal analysis.
“This is not about whether our city charter can be improved — it is about whether the City has to follow the same laws as everyone else,” Kim added. “If a candidate filed petitions twenty-five days late, they would not be on the ballot. The rules do not disappear because City Hall finds them inconvenient.”
The Committee’s letter, citing decisions of New York’s appellate courts, notes that election commissioners have well-settled authority to decline to certify a question that fails the formal requirements of the Election Law, and that courts — including the Appellate Division department that covers Saratoga County — have kept legally defective charter questions off general election ballots in the past.
The Committee has asked the Board to respond in writing and is prepared to pursue all available legal remedies to ensure the law is followed.
###