S 417: Enacts the "Count Every Vote Act of New York" which amends the procedure for the recanvass of votes in election districts; defines margin of victory for the purpose of triggering a hand recount of ballots.

  
  STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 417 2025-2026 Regular Sessions  IN SENATE (Prefiled) January 8, 2025 ___________ Introduced by Sen. GIANARIS -- read twice and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee on Elections AN ACT to amend the election law, in relation to the procedure for the recanvass of votes in election districts The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. This act shall be known and may be cited as "The Count 2 Every Vote Act of New York". 3 § 2. Subdivision 4 of section 9-208 of the election law, as added by 4 section 1 of part JJ of chapter 55 of the laws of 2020, paragraphs (d) 5 and (e) as amended by chapter 474 of the laws of 2023, is amended to 6 read as follows: 7 4. (a) The board of elections or a bipartisan committee appointed by 8 the board shall conduct a full [manual] hand recount of all ballots 9 [for] cast on which a particular contest appeared: 10 i. Where the margin of victory is twenty votes or less; or 11 ii. Where the margin of victory is 0.5% or less; or 12 iii. In a contest where one million or more ballots have been cast and 13 the margin of victory is less than 5,000 votes. 14 (b) For the purposes of this section, the term margin of victory shall 15 mean the [margin between all votes cast in the entire contest] differ- 16 ence between the number of votes cast for the winning candidate who 17 received the fewest votes and the losing candidate who received the most 18 votes; or the difference between the number of votes cast for and 19 against a ballot proposal following the recanvass of votes. 20 (c) For the purposes of this section, the margin of victory percentage 21 of one-half of one percent (0.5%) or less shall be calculated by divid- 22 ing the margin of victory defined in paragraph (b) of this subdivision 23 by the total number of ballots cast on which the contest appeared and 24 then multiplying the quotient by one hundred. EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD00720-01-5 
 S. 417 2 1 (d) Where the contest [involves] appeared on the ballot in two or more 2 counties, portions of two or more counties, or a portion of one or more 3 counties and a portion of the city of New York, the margin of victory, 4 as defined in paragraph (b) of this subdivision, shall be determined by 5 the state board of elections based on the most recent recanvass results 6 for the contest submitted by the boards of elections of [the counties 7 involved] those jurisdictions. The margin of victory percentage shall 8 be determined as required by paragraph (c) of this subdivision. 9 [(d)] (e) No board of elections shall commence a full [manual] hand 10 recount of a particular contest unless and until such board of elections 11 has completed and announced the results of the recanvass required by 12 subdivision one of this section, for each applicable election district. 13 [(e)] (f) The result of the [manual] full hand recount of ballots 14 required by paragraph (a) of this subdivision shall supersede the 15 returns filed by the inspectors of election of [the] every election 16 district in which the canvass was initially made. 17 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately.