Niagara County lawmakers voted Tuesday to authorize potential legal action against New York state over a law county officials argue is interfering with a federal investigation into possible noncitizen voting.<\/p>\n
The resolution passed 9-4, with all Republicans voting in favor and all Democrats opposed. Two legislators were absent.<\/p>\n
The vote gives County Attorney Claude Joerg authorization to pursue litigation challenging a law signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in May that restricts local governments from sharing certain personal information with federal immigration authorities.<\/p>\n
In an exclusive interview with Spectrum News 1, Joerg said federal immigration investigators are looking into eight people who he says have voted in Niagara County elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got eight individuals that the immigration is looking at right now regarding this issue,\u201d Joerg said.<\/p>\n
Joerg said federal authorities have requested records involving people who have voted in local elections. However, when asked whether any cases of illegal voting had been confirmed, he could not say.<\/p>\n
Spectrum News 1 also contacted Niagara County\u2019s two election commissioners, one Republican and one Democrat, who confirmed that representatives from the Department of Homeland Security had visited their office seeking voter information.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can confirm that representatives from the Department of Homeland Security have visited our office seeking information related to active registered voters and voting history. This inquiry is part of an ongoing investigation,\u201d the commissioners said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n
The commissioners said they could not discuss specific details or questions surrounding suspected noncitizen voting while the investigation remains active.<\/p>\n
Disagreement over state law<\/p>\n
At the center of the dispute is New York General Municipal Law Section 996-a, which restricts the disclosure of certain personal information to federal immigration authorities.<\/p>\n
Joerg argues the law puts county officials in a difficult position when responding to requests from federal investigators.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo basically what\u2019s occurring is they\u2019re putting the county in a terrible position because we want to ensure that only citizens vote because until they amend the Constitution, that\u2019s all that\u2019s entitled to vote our citizens,\u201d Joerg said.<\/p>\n
But the law also includes exceptions for voter registration and other election-related matters.<\/p>\n
When Spectrum News 1 questioned Joerg about those exceptions, he said he believes the restrictions still prevent the county from providing certain identifying information.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way I read it is if a immigration officer comes in and asks for records, they can\u2019t get records they have people\u2019s identification on. That would be their name, their addresses, dates of birth, all those things,\u201d Joerg said.<\/p>\n
Immigration attorney Lauren DesRosiers disputes that interpretation and questions whether the county has grounds for a successful legal challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder the 996 a, which is the statute that Niagara is looking to challenge, election law and voter registration is specifically exempted. So it doesn\u2019t really have legs here as far as the lawsuit goes,\u201d DesRosiers said.<\/p>\n
The disagreement raises questions about how the law\u2019s election-related exceptions apply to the specific information federal authorities are requesting.<\/p>\n
Immigration debate enters governor\u2019s race<\/p>\n
The dispute comes less than two weeks before New York\u2019s midterm elections, with immigration enforcement emerging as a major issue in the race for governor.<\/p>\n
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman has advocated greater cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities. Hochul, a Democrat seeking reelection, has supported restrictions on certain forms of that cooperation.<\/p>\n
Joerg, however, maintains the county\u2019s concern is election integrity rather than the broader immigration debate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis particular case is all about election integrity because one voter\u2019s that important so that we can maintain integrity of our voting rolls,\u201d Joerg said.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s vote authorizes the county attorney to pursue legal action but does not mean a lawsuit has been filed.<\/p>\n
Joerg told Spectrum News 1 before the vote that he would prefer to resolve the dispute without litigation.<\/p>\n
Spectrum News 1 requested comment from Hochul\u2019s office and New York Attorney General Letitia James\u2019 office. Neither had responded by the reporting deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Niagara County lawmakers voted Tuesday to authorize potential legal action against New York state over a law county…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[113,127050,9,11,10,49,51,50,112,87,200],"class_list":["post-379362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-buffalo","tag-nai-rhoden","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-politics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}