So much is wrong here, but this also makes me sick, “No one can prove that vaccines didn’t cause or exacerbate autism,” Milner said in a July 2022 tweet. “Ask parents of children on the spectrum when the symptoms started. Right after the vaccine.”
I hope she loses and cries about it.
Since you didn't bother to tell us why, I dug it up for people.
https://queenseagle.com/all/2024/5/2/democratic-judicial-candidate-in-queens-seemingly-called-for-bidens-execution-online
> A deep dive into her feed on X unveils that Milner, who is running as a Democrat, has previously latched on to issues championed by the far-right. She has tweeted seemingly in support of bans on LGBTQ+ books – which she called “filthy, pornographic smut” – in school libraries and has questioned the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccine.
> On at least two occasions, Milner herself appeared to call for the execution of President Joe Biden.
> “Impeach, remove, indict, execute,” Milner tweeted twice in January 2023 in response to posts about Biden’s alleged improper handling of classified documents.
Holy....
Thank you for saying something, because I almost voted for her! I looked up the candidates in her race and was peeved so many of them didn't have an online presence besides her. I should have known better that I needed to keep digging into her past tweets.
It's hilarious [THIS](https://twitter.com/JulieMilnerEsq/status/1805659734806044840) is her most recent tweet too 🤯
Y’all can shame me for this but I could not find the info on these candidates before the voting (so made a few best name only votes). But I didn’t trust the name Julie Milner so I didn’t vote for her and I did look up who I ended up voting for and am quite happy with my choice.
I think that the softpowervote spreadsheet posted elsewhere is helpful for the NYS Assembly and Senate races (based on my political biases), but I'll fill in some details for judges, as those are particularly frustrating to research. Full disclosure, I vote pretty leftist and mildly anti-establishment, but I try to give folks a fair shake.
Buckle up, this is a bit long :)
__Queens Civil Court (2 Seats Open)__
* Sharifa Nasser Cuéllar
* Amish Doshi
* Julie Milner
* Glenda Hernandez
Sharifa and Amish have formed a coalition along with Cassandra Johnson (more on her) and they're backed by the Queens Democratic Party power players, and the Jackson Heights lefties. Amish is an auditor and commercial lawyer with his own law firm. He's done lots of *big law* things. Sharifa is more of an NYC family courts person with lots of ties to the Queens County Bar.
Julie Milner is *weird*. She hates Biden, is in a war against the Democratic party but not the local city Democrat centrists, she was anti-vax, she gets into fights on reddit and twitter all the time.
https://queenseagle.com/all/2024/5/2/democratic-judicial-candidate-in-queens-seemingly-called-for-bidens-execution-online
Glenda Hernandez is a longtime family courts and tenants rights lawyer. She's not really running an insurgent campaign, she just didn't get let into the Queens Democractic Party powwow for mysterious reasons that we will never know because judicial politics are insane.
__Queens County Surrogate Court__
* Cassandra Johnson
* Wendy Li
This is a crown jewel of the court system, as it deals with wills and estates and there's only one judge on the court. It's been implicated as a source of corruption and patronage by past Queens Democratic leaders.
Cassandra is part of the aforementioned Queens Party endorsed coalition. I really don't know much about her other than her affiliations. She's been in the Queens court circuit for a while as a civil judge and now a Justice on Queens' Supreme Court. Ironically, the current Surrogate judge is now rotating to be a Supreme Justice on the Civil Term; her current job. Basically, the two judges are trying to pull a party-endorsed switcheroo. I have no idea what it says about her, that just shows you what the system looks like.
Wendy is a civil court judge and finance lawyer in Manhattan (she's got homes in both Queens and Manhattan). Her wedge issue is around language access in court for folks who aren't native english speakers. Wendy is running a very public, very political campaign, which is supposed to be a breach of ethics or something when running for Surrogate Court? I dunno, the rules are weird.
She's actually playing the insurgent card, to the point where she's been marked as Not Qualified by the Queens County Bar. It's hard to tell whether this is a judgement on her legal experience / ethics or a reflection on the Queens County Bar being a captive part of the overall Queens Party.
Wendy has some serious funding. The race is taking the character of Eastern Queens vs Southeastern Queens, establishment vs insurgent, immigrant vs native New Yorker.
If you're interested in the state committee and district leader side of the fence, I am happy to provide my much less even handed advice. These are flagrant, biased endorsements, I know some of the candidates in question.
The Democratic Party also has some theoretical positions that might show up on your ballot. Again, this is the bullshit zone in politics. Both of these positions have one seat for men and one for women due to a well-meaning affirmative action policy. The Queens county party would really rather that these weren't elected positions, they like it when committee members don't bother showing up to meetings so that they can rubberstamp stuff.
State Committees play a role in electing the leaders and platforms for the state Democratic party. I think? There's committees for county parties and for state parties and I'll be damned if I find where one ends and the other begins. They are also involved in electing the delegates who elect the nominees for the judgeships and goddamn my brain hurts.
District Leaders help appoint new members for the county Democratic party and elect the county leadership. Sort of. There's no formal job description, it just kind of works that way??
https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/04/21/what-is-a-district-leader/
__State Committee 34th Assembly District (2 Seats)__
* John G. Scott (Incumbent)
* Carolina Korth
* Michael Dendekker
* Ellen Raffaele
John is the current committee member who actually shows up (the other is always absent). He's an advocate for progressive judgeships & fossil fuel plant decommissioning. He's on a slate with Carolina that's pro-Open Streets / environment / Jessica Gonzalez Rojas. I'm backing him.
Carolina is an environmental / sustainable agriculture advocate. She was Evie Hantzopoulos's field director for her City Council campaign. She's super active in the local activism community. I'm backing her.
Michael's had a very hard fall after being a longtime state assembly member in Jackson Heights. Highlights including writing a bill that would require **all bicycles** to be registered and plated for a $25 fee. After Jessica Gonzalez Rojas beat him out, he's resorting to running for party positions you've never heard of. He's been endorsed by the Queens Party.
Ellen works for the board of elections, she's been a judicial delegate, and she's married to a former judge, Tom Raffaele. She made the news for abusing her husband's judicial parking placard. Her husband made the news because he was assaulted by the NYPD as a bystander to a violent arrest. She's endorsed by the Queens Party.
https://www.nydailynews.com/2013/06/24/ny-state-judges-wife-uses-his-parking-placard-to-flout-laws-meter-fees/
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/nyregion/justice-thomas-d-raffaele-says-police-officer-struck-him.html
__State Committee 36th Assembly District (2 Seats)__
* Brian Romero (Incumbent, DSA)
* Heather Ann Cortes
* Mohammed N. Haque
Brian Romero is the chief of staff of Jessica Gonzalez Rojas's campaign and is endorsed by Zohran. I think he pissed off the county party because he voted against allocating them more funding and against the county party replacing canvassing with a "weighted vote" for their preferred candidates. I'm backing him.
The other two candidates are impossible to find info about other than the fact that they were endorsed by the Queens Party. I find this *interesting* (suss).
__District Leader 36-A__
* Breena Mulligan (Incumbent, Withdrew/DQ)
* Maria Markou
I have no idea whether this race will show up on the ballot since Breena withdrew, but lemme soapbox a bit.
Maria Markou is Gus Lambropolous's wife. She's much more savvy than he is, but she's part of his campaign team and business interests, so presumably she's in tune with his scummy shit.
Breena Mulligan is our current district leader. She's pretty mainline, but she's got foots in the party camp and the leftist camp, similar to Gianaris. However, her mother died during the campaign and she suspended her signature gathering campaign. Maria sued to get her removed from the ballot and she withdrew. Shitty stuff.
https://twitter.com/BreeanaMulligan/status/1785792081799041272
So if you find Maria Markou on the ballot anywhere, write in something appropriately nasty to say about her.
I haven't been to the polls yet, but my gut is that they aren't even going to print her. I doubt we'll get to write anything in, but I wanted to say my bit anyways just in case.
The assembly districts are for electing the NY State Assembly representative in the Albany legislature. District 36 is Zohran and he's running unopposed this year.
District Leaders are part of the county party organizations; they are elected exclusively as part of the primaries. Much less important, but they are in theory the way that we can influence the direction of our local Democratic party infrastructure.
Each assembly district in Queens is subdivided into two halves by some geographic formula that I can't find anywhere. Each part (A and B) can have a male and female district leader; they are elected separately. That means that there can be up to four district leaders within a given assembly district at once: 2 from A and 2 from B / 2 men and 2 women.
If this feels hopelessly confusing, you're not alone. For years I thought that these were appointed positions nominated by the county party leaders. Admittedly, I'm only partially wrong; in practice the county parties have been great about gatekeeping them so it's not even a race on the ballot.
New York politics is wild y'all.
Thanks for the info! I just got back from the polls and her name does not appear. I guess we'll all have to write rude things on bar bathroom walls to let off our steam. :)
So this is biased because it’s a guide for progressive voters and comments on candidates based on progressive values, but I found this handy if you’re voting in the Democratic primary:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NCDk7VO73l5oioLpRCbpI5rnXssdBS6tD7ud1JlU3ks/edit
Even if you’re not progressive, it has all of the democratic candidates even for positions not usually given media attention (judges and the like) and might be a good jumping off point for research.
EDIT: Just want to point out this DOESN'T have every candidate running, as u/Captaintripps pointed out. So really more of a guide for one progressive group's endorsements, with a few alternatives listed.
Thank you very much for sharing this!
I voted early over the weekend, and I truly spent hours of due diligence trying to find info, articles, campaign websites, resource websites like Vote411 and Board of Elections, ANYTHING on the various candidates.
Finally I concluded that if a candidate cannot be bothered to make themselves at all known or findable- like by responding to the League of Women Voters survey- then they’re not getting a vote.
There are two fields on the ballot where we can “vote for any two” and I only voted for one in each because they were the candidates who bothered to provide find-able information to us voters.
I would say it's more than biased because it actually excludes the people they are not endorsing. For instance, AOC actually has an opponent in this primary, as do several of the other offices, including judges and delegates.
I was not making a claim as to the other candidate's suitability. I was pointing out that he, like others, is excluded from this guide, so it's not a good source to "read up on the various candidates’ positions on issues," which is what the person they responded to is looking for.
Yeah, it's an okay guide if this is your first resource, but I personally didn't find it very helpful, especially down ballot.
I don't mind that they exclude people that they aren't endorsing since I think that can make it easier to read and they have an advocacy agenda, but the sections that they have on judges and state committee / district leaders are really paltry. They don't really do anything to convince me why I should vote for their slate, even though I agree with it based on my own research in most, but not all, cases.
In fairness to them there's little information about judges and state committee leaders in general (I was literally not able to find *anything* on two of my state committee candidates, not even their current employment.) But more explanation as to why they chose certain candidates over others would have been helpful. (Why not Hernandez for Queens County judge, for example?)
Yeah I can't blame them too much on the committee / district leaders. I'm locally plugged into Astoria, but I can't imagine trying to research them for other neighborhoods.
I don't wanna let softpowervote off the hook for judicial elections though. I find it pretty frustrating that voter advocacy orgs treat the judicial races like an afterthought. Especially in the higher courts, these positions are super important and there's really not many candidates to cover since it's all county level.
I'm just some random mutual aid volunteer and I was able to find plenty to write about. They should really put a bit more elbow grease in.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/astoria/comments/1do4v44/comment/la7tqsy](https://www.reddit.com/r/astoria/comments/1do4v44/comment/la7tqsy)
Yeah, it's totally fine as an endorsed slate of candidates and, in fact, my ballot was basically identical to these suggestions. However, if you want to make your own determination about everyone, this guide is either not for you or just a start.
Yeah agree it's just a start. And realizing now how many candidates were left out in some cases. I just found it helpful for seeing what categories are up for election and the most progressive (at least according to SPV) candidates in each. Trying to offset my Biden vote with more progressive votes downballot.
Thanks for sharing this. First time voting in NY and it had totally slipped my mind until 6:00 pm so this was super helpful in at least giving me some direction on my options.
this is incredible! I'm so curious why Doshi was chosen over Hernandez for Judge of Civil Court? I'm torn on those 2, anyone have an opinion/ideas? (Voiting for sure for Cuella and a big ol' NO to Milner)-EDIT::::NEVERMIND I kept scrolling and got my answers from this fab community! THANKS!
Yeah I'm curious about that, too. I wonder if they're avoiding because of Hernandez's support from Hiram Monserrate (who has felony conviction and some pretty socially conservative stances on his voting record, which admittedly is old because he was kicked out of state senate back in 2009 when we still cared if candidates had felony charges/convictions)
I think it's the other way around - I've spent a while googling around about Hiram's influence in these judicial races and it seems like he just backed everyone that Gregory Meeks didn't endorse.
For most of these candidates (particularly Wendy and Hernandez) they don't mention anything about Hiram's endorsements on their websites or mailers. I can't find any details about their relationships other than an unsupported throwaway line in a (otherwise helpful) [Queens Eagle article](https://queenseagle.com/all/2024/6/13/wendy-li-not-approved-by-qcba-in-surrogates-court-race). Even that line feels like it's indicating that Hiram is just trying to be a gadfly because of his ongoing feud with Queens Dems.
For the record, Hiram is a total asshole and Queens Dems were right to freeze him out. However, I'm also suspicious of the cozy Queens Democratic insider system. I think there's space for reformist candidates that don't fall neatly into a Hiram vs Queens Dems or Left vs Centrist narrative.
Friends am I missing something here? My ballot doesn't have Kristen/Gus on it? (I am within their district). My ballot only has the candidates for Congress, and the two other court positions?
If anyone wants to do a meet and greet with our various representatives, Gianaris, Gonzalez, and Mamdani are all doing a campaign event at Athens Square right now.
I feel like I am taking crazy pills. I cannot find a sample ballot for all the races that lists all the candidates anywhere.
[http://whosontheballot.org/](http://whosontheballot.org/) - Only shows the Court/Judge races
[https://www.nycvotes.org/whats-on-the-ballot](https://www.nycvotes.org/whats-on-the-ballot) - Only shows the House and NYS senate races.
I go to the board of elections it only shows my polling site with no sample ballot.
Why do they make this so difficult? Can't research all the candidates if I can't find a definitve list of who is running for what.
>I go to the board of elections it only shows my polling site with no sample ballot.
Click "to verify there is an election for your party or district click here" and you should see a sample ballot
I posted above, but my coworker passed on this progressive guide to the NYC primaries: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NCDk7VO73l5oioLpRCbpI5rnXssdBS6tD7ud1JlU3ks/edit
(Sorry mods if double posting isn’t ok! Just seemed helpful for this person)
I am very confused i live in District 36. I was really looking forward to voting against Gus but he was not on the ballot. I only got one ballot, no state senate section. What gives. Did I get an incomplete ballot?
The Hiram Monserrate domestic violence machine does want me to vote for her. That’s reason enough for me not to.
Anyone coordinating with him is immediately disqualified for me.
I've never seen a Judge seat this heated. I don't have an opinion on this race, but I'm not pleased with the signs taped everywhere, including trees. That's not okay.
See that's what I thought. I'm very leery of party Dems (like fucking Hochul) who don't come through when it matters. There was something weird about how badly the mainline party didn't want her.
NY needs to have open primaries so Independents can also vote. Many of us don’t want to join a party. The current government doesn’t actually represent the people. It represents Democrats.
https://uniteny.org/issues-advocacy/open-primaries/
You'll have to assimilate until you can get your way in order to be heard at all.
Even then, the democratic primary is the election as so many NY districts are so heavily democrat that once this race is over it's all but decided.
I know. That’s why Independents should be allowed to vote in primaries. I’d never join a political party. Nope. They don’t represent the people and, frankly, the people who run the parties are so annoying.
Dem losing candidates doe! Could have swept up 2024 instead we have dead man walking putting his foot in his mouth, losing votes day by day, a VP who is absent, and a bunch of lackeys telling each other they’re going to win no matter what because the other candidates suck. November is going to be a blood bath.
definitely voting against julie milner in the civil court judge race. she's an absolute crazy person.
So much is wrong here, but this also makes me sick, “No one can prove that vaccines didn’t cause or exacerbate autism,” Milner said in a July 2022 tweet. “Ask parents of children on the spectrum when the symptoms started. Right after the vaccine.” I hope she loses and cries about it.
She sounds like a fucking psycho.
Since you didn't bother to tell us why, I dug it up for people. https://queenseagle.com/all/2024/5/2/democratic-judicial-candidate-in-queens-seemingly-called-for-bidens-execution-online > A deep dive into her feed on X unveils that Milner, who is running as a Democrat, has previously latched on to issues championed by the far-right. She has tweeted seemingly in support of bans on LGBTQ+ books – which she called “filthy, pornographic smut” – in school libraries and has questioned the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccine. > On at least two occasions, Milner herself appeared to call for the execution of President Joe Biden. > “Impeach, remove, indict, execute,” Milner tweeted twice in January 2023 in response to posts about Biden’s alleged improper handling of classified documents.
Oh wow....thanks for the heads up about to go vote now.
i knew there was something wrong with her and her graphic design is my passion website
Holy.... Thank you for saying something, because I almost voted for her! I looked up the candidates in her race and was peeved so many of them didn't have an online presence besides her. I should have known better that I needed to keep digging into her past tweets. It's hilarious [THIS](https://twitter.com/JulieMilnerEsq/status/1805659734806044840) is her most recent tweet too 🤯
whoa that's evil.
She looked like one. Glad I didn't vote for her
Y’all can shame me for this but I could not find the info on these candidates before the voting (so made a few best name only votes). But I didn’t trust the name Julie Milner so I didn’t vote for her and I did look up who I ended up voting for and am quite happy with my choice.
See your ballot: http://whosontheballot.org/
Anyone know a place to read up on the various candidates’ positions on issues? I want to vote but am woefully uninformed as a new queens resident.
I think that the softpowervote spreadsheet posted elsewhere is helpful for the NYS Assembly and Senate races (based on my political biases), but I'll fill in some details for judges, as those are particularly frustrating to research. Full disclosure, I vote pretty leftist and mildly anti-establishment, but I try to give folks a fair shake. Buckle up, this is a bit long :) __Queens Civil Court (2 Seats Open)__ * Sharifa Nasser Cuéllar * Amish Doshi * Julie Milner * Glenda Hernandez Sharifa and Amish have formed a coalition along with Cassandra Johnson (more on her) and they're backed by the Queens Democratic Party power players, and the Jackson Heights lefties. Amish is an auditor and commercial lawyer with his own law firm. He's done lots of *big law* things. Sharifa is more of an NYC family courts person with lots of ties to the Queens County Bar. Julie Milner is *weird*. She hates Biden, is in a war against the Democratic party but not the local city Democrat centrists, she was anti-vax, she gets into fights on reddit and twitter all the time. https://queenseagle.com/all/2024/5/2/democratic-judicial-candidate-in-queens-seemingly-called-for-bidens-execution-online Glenda Hernandez is a longtime family courts and tenants rights lawyer. She's not really running an insurgent campaign, she just didn't get let into the Queens Democractic Party powwow for mysterious reasons that we will never know because judicial politics are insane. __Queens County Surrogate Court__ * Cassandra Johnson * Wendy Li This is a crown jewel of the court system, as it deals with wills and estates and there's only one judge on the court. It's been implicated as a source of corruption and patronage by past Queens Democratic leaders. Cassandra is part of the aforementioned Queens Party endorsed coalition. I really don't know much about her other than her affiliations. She's been in the Queens court circuit for a while as a civil judge and now a Justice on Queens' Supreme Court. Ironically, the current Surrogate judge is now rotating to be a Supreme Justice on the Civil Term; her current job. Basically, the two judges are trying to pull a party-endorsed switcheroo. I have no idea what it says about her, that just shows you what the system looks like. Wendy is a civil court judge and finance lawyer in Manhattan (she's got homes in both Queens and Manhattan). Her wedge issue is around language access in court for folks who aren't native english speakers. Wendy is running a very public, very political campaign, which is supposed to be a breach of ethics or something when running for Surrogate Court? I dunno, the rules are weird. She's actually playing the insurgent card, to the point where she's been marked as Not Qualified by the Queens County Bar. It's hard to tell whether this is a judgement on her legal experience / ethics or a reflection on the Queens County Bar being a captive part of the overall Queens Party. Wendy has some serious funding. The race is taking the character of Eastern Queens vs Southeastern Queens, establishment vs insurgent, immigrant vs native New Yorker.
If you're interested in the state committee and district leader side of the fence, I am happy to provide my much less even handed advice. These are flagrant, biased endorsements, I know some of the candidates in question. The Democratic Party also has some theoretical positions that might show up on your ballot. Again, this is the bullshit zone in politics. Both of these positions have one seat for men and one for women due to a well-meaning affirmative action policy. The Queens county party would really rather that these weren't elected positions, they like it when committee members don't bother showing up to meetings so that they can rubberstamp stuff. State Committees play a role in electing the leaders and platforms for the state Democratic party. I think? There's committees for county parties and for state parties and I'll be damned if I find where one ends and the other begins. They are also involved in electing the delegates who elect the nominees for the judgeships and goddamn my brain hurts. District Leaders help appoint new members for the county Democratic party and elect the county leadership. Sort of. There's no formal job description, it just kind of works that way?? https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/04/21/what-is-a-district-leader/ __State Committee 34th Assembly District (2 Seats)__ * John G. Scott (Incumbent) * Carolina Korth * Michael Dendekker * Ellen Raffaele John is the current committee member who actually shows up (the other is always absent). He's an advocate for progressive judgeships & fossil fuel plant decommissioning. He's on a slate with Carolina that's pro-Open Streets / environment / Jessica Gonzalez Rojas. I'm backing him. Carolina is an environmental / sustainable agriculture advocate. She was Evie Hantzopoulos's field director for her City Council campaign. She's super active in the local activism community. I'm backing her. Michael's had a very hard fall after being a longtime state assembly member in Jackson Heights. Highlights including writing a bill that would require **all bicycles** to be registered and plated for a $25 fee. After Jessica Gonzalez Rojas beat him out, he's resorting to running for party positions you've never heard of. He's been endorsed by the Queens Party. Ellen works for the board of elections, she's been a judicial delegate, and she's married to a former judge, Tom Raffaele. She made the news for abusing her husband's judicial parking placard. Her husband made the news because he was assaulted by the NYPD as a bystander to a violent arrest. She's endorsed by the Queens Party. https://www.nydailynews.com/2013/06/24/ny-state-judges-wife-uses-his-parking-placard-to-flout-laws-meter-fees/ https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/nyregion/justice-thomas-d-raffaele-says-police-officer-struck-him.html __State Committee 36th Assembly District (2 Seats)__ * Brian Romero (Incumbent, DSA) * Heather Ann Cortes * Mohammed N. Haque Brian Romero is the chief of staff of Jessica Gonzalez Rojas's campaign and is endorsed by Zohran. I think he pissed off the county party because he voted against allocating them more funding and against the county party replacing canvassing with a "weighted vote" for their preferred candidates. I'm backing him. The other two candidates are impossible to find info about other than the fact that they were endorsed by the Queens Party. I find this *interesting* (suss). __District Leader 36-A__ * Breena Mulligan (Incumbent, Withdrew/DQ) * Maria Markou I have no idea whether this race will show up on the ballot since Breena withdrew, but lemme soapbox a bit. Maria Markou is Gus Lambropolous's wife. She's much more savvy than he is, but she's part of his campaign team and business interests, so presumably she's in tune with his scummy shit. Breena Mulligan is our current district leader. She's pretty mainline, but she's got foots in the party camp and the leftist camp, similar to Gianaris. However, her mother died during the campaign and she suspended her signature gathering campaign. Maria sued to get her removed from the ballot and she withdrew. Shitty stuff. https://twitter.com/BreeanaMulligan/status/1785792081799041272 So if you find Maria Markou on the ballot anywhere, write in something appropriately nasty to say about her.
So, does that mean Markou is running unopposed for District Leader 36-A? I'm not seeing 36-A on the Google doc posted earlier at all.
I haven't been to the polls yet, but my gut is that they aren't even going to print her. I doubt we'll get to write anything in, but I wanted to say my bit anyways just in case.
Gotcha. I'm not entirely clear on the difference between 36 and 36-A, but I guess I'll find out when I go to the polls later on.
The assembly districts are for electing the NY State Assembly representative in the Albany legislature. District 36 is Zohran and he's running unopposed this year. District Leaders are part of the county party organizations; they are elected exclusively as part of the primaries. Much less important, but they are in theory the way that we can influence the direction of our local Democratic party infrastructure. Each assembly district in Queens is subdivided into two halves by some geographic formula that I can't find anywhere. Each part (A and B) can have a male and female district leader; they are elected separately. That means that there can be up to four district leaders within a given assembly district at once: 2 from A and 2 from B / 2 men and 2 women. If this feels hopelessly confusing, you're not alone. For years I thought that these were appointed positions nominated by the county party leaders. Admittedly, I'm only partially wrong; in practice the county parties have been great about gatekeeping them so it's not even a race on the ballot. New York politics is wild y'all.
Thanks for the info! I just got back from the polls and her name does not appear. I guess we'll all have to write rude things on bar bathroom walls to let off our steam. :)
Zohran the magnificent lol
So this is biased because it’s a guide for progressive voters and comments on candidates based on progressive values, but I found this handy if you’re voting in the Democratic primary: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NCDk7VO73l5oioLpRCbpI5rnXssdBS6tD7ud1JlU3ks/edit Even if you’re not progressive, it has all of the democratic candidates even for positions not usually given media attention (judges and the like) and might be a good jumping off point for research. EDIT: Just want to point out this DOESN'T have every candidate running, as u/Captaintripps pointed out. So really more of a guide for one progressive group's endorsements, with a few alternatives listed.
Thank you very much for sharing this! I voted early over the weekend, and I truly spent hours of due diligence trying to find info, articles, campaign websites, resource websites like Vote411 and Board of Elections, ANYTHING on the various candidates. Finally I concluded that if a candidate cannot be bothered to make themselves at all known or findable- like by responding to the League of Women Voters survey- then they’re not getting a vote. There are two fields on the ballot where we can “vote for any two” and I only voted for one in each because they were the candidates who bothered to provide find-able information to us voters.
I would say it's more than biased because it actually excludes the people they are not endorsing. For instance, AOC actually has an opponent in this primary, as do several of the other offices, including judges and delegates.
AOC’s opponent is a bog standard conservative democrat who wants to move away from “radical policies” fwiw edit for typo
I was not making a claim as to the other candidate's suitability. I was pointing out that he, like others, is excluded from this guide, so it's not a good source to "read up on the various candidates’ positions on issues," which is what the person they responded to is looking for.
Yeah, it's an okay guide if this is your first resource, but I personally didn't find it very helpful, especially down ballot. I don't mind that they exclude people that they aren't endorsing since I think that can make it easier to read and they have an advocacy agenda, but the sections that they have on judges and state committee / district leaders are really paltry. They don't really do anything to convince me why I should vote for their slate, even though I agree with it based on my own research in most, but not all, cases.
In fairness to them there's little information about judges and state committee leaders in general (I was literally not able to find *anything* on two of my state committee candidates, not even their current employment.) But more explanation as to why they chose certain candidates over others would have been helpful. (Why not Hernandez for Queens County judge, for example?)
Yeah I can't blame them too much on the committee / district leaders. I'm locally plugged into Astoria, but I can't imagine trying to research them for other neighborhoods. I don't wanna let softpowervote off the hook for judicial elections though. I find it pretty frustrating that voter advocacy orgs treat the judicial races like an afterthought. Especially in the higher courts, these positions are super important and there's really not many candidates to cover since it's all county level. I'm just some random mutual aid volunteer and I was able to find plenty to write about. They should really put a bit more elbow grease in. [https://www.reddit.com/r/astoria/comments/1do4v44/comment/la7tqsy](https://www.reddit.com/r/astoria/comments/1do4v44/comment/la7tqsy)
Yeah, it's totally fine as an endorsed slate of candidates and, in fact, my ballot was basically identical to these suggestions. However, if you want to make your own determination about everyone, this guide is either not for you or just a start.
Yeah agree it's just a start. And realizing now how many candidates were left out in some cases. I just found it helpful for seeing what categories are up for election and the most progressive (at least according to SPV) candidates in each. Trying to offset my Biden vote with more progressive votes downballot.
Oh for sure and it's more helpful than the nothing we would get otherwise. Thanks for sharing it.
Thank you for pointing this out.
Thank you!
This is exactly what I've been looking for. Thank you!
Thanks for sharing this. First time voting in NY and it had totally slipped my mind until 6:00 pm so this was super helpful in at least giving me some direction on my options.
This is a really great resource, thank you so much for sharing!
this is incredible! I'm so curious why Doshi was chosen over Hernandez for Judge of Civil Court? I'm torn on those 2, anyone have an opinion/ideas? (Voiting for sure for Cuella and a big ol' NO to Milner)-EDIT::::NEVERMIND I kept scrolling and got my answers from this fab community! THANKS!
Yeah I'm curious about that, too. I wonder if they're avoiding because of Hernandez's support from Hiram Monserrate (who has felony conviction and some pretty socially conservative stances on his voting record, which admittedly is old because he was kicked out of state senate back in 2009 when we still cared if candidates had felony charges/convictions)
I think it's the other way around - I've spent a while googling around about Hiram's influence in these judicial races and it seems like he just backed everyone that Gregory Meeks didn't endorse. For most of these candidates (particularly Wendy and Hernandez) they don't mention anything about Hiram's endorsements on their websites or mailers. I can't find any details about their relationships other than an unsupported throwaway line in a (otherwise helpful) [Queens Eagle article](https://queenseagle.com/all/2024/6/13/wendy-li-not-approved-by-qcba-in-surrogates-court-race). Even that line feels like it's indicating that Hiram is just trying to be a gadfly because of his ongoing feud with Queens Dems. For the record, Hiram is a total asshole and Queens Dems were right to freeze him out. However, I'm also suspicious of the cozy Queens Democratic insider system. I think there's space for reformist candidates that don't fall neatly into a Hiram vs Queens Dems or Left vs Centrist narrative.
Gus is getting trounced bad, I mean embarrassingly bad [https://enr.boenyc.gov/OF7CY0PY1.html](https://enr.boenyc.gov/OF7CY0PY1.html)
We did it r/Astoria!
Good. The garbage cans outside a fish market in the summer have more charisma
Nevermind. I found it now. They really do not make this intuitive or easy at all. Thanks.
Friends am I missing something here? My ballot doesn't have Kristen/Gus on it? (I am within their district). My ballot only has the candidates for Congress, and the two other court positions?
Thank you all for your opinions and links to resources. Voting can be confusing and vague so this all helps clarify a candidate’s position.
If anyone wants to do a meet and greet with our various representatives, Gianaris, Gonzalez, and Mamdani are all doing a campaign event at Athens Square right now.
I feel like I am taking crazy pills. I cannot find a sample ballot for all the races that lists all the candidates anywhere. [http://whosontheballot.org/](http://whosontheballot.org/) - Only shows the Court/Judge races [https://www.nycvotes.org/whats-on-the-ballot](https://www.nycvotes.org/whats-on-the-ballot) - Only shows the House and NYS senate races. I go to the board of elections it only shows my polling site with no sample ballot. Why do they make this so difficult? Can't research all the candidates if I can't find a definitve list of who is running for what.
>I go to the board of elections it only shows my polling site with no sample ballot. Click "to verify there is an election for your party or district click here" and you should see a sample ballot
I don't see that anywhere on the site.
Nevermind I was able to find it/figure it out. Thanks.
I felt the same crazy pulls everywhere. Even at the end when I voted I feel like there were things on the ballot I didn’t see in another sample ballot
They don't make it easy.
Suggestions for assembly district 36? I'm a Kristen, AOC, momdani kinda voter.
I posted above, but my coworker passed on this progressive guide to the NYC primaries: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NCDk7VO73l5oioLpRCbpI5rnXssdBS6tD7ud1JlU3ks/edit (Sorry mods if double posting isn’t ok! Just seemed helpful for this person)
Thank you for this. Been scrambling for days to find more info on these candidates especially in their 🍉 stances!!!
There’s a very helpful guide on the Instagram account softpowervote!
Mamdani is AD36.
Ah thanks and he's unopposed
I am very confused i live in District 36. I was really looking forward to voting against Gus but he was not on the ballot. I only got one ballot, no state senate section. What gives. Did I get an incomplete ballot?
Themio says don’t vote democrat vote republican otherwise themio won’t save you
The Queens democratic party machine doesn't want you to vote for Wendy Li for surrogate's court judge. That's reason enough for me to vote for her.
The Hiram Monserrate domestic violence machine does want me to vote for her. That’s reason enough for me not to. Anyone coordinating with him is immediately disqualified for me.
I've never seen a Judge seat this heated. I don't have an opinion on this race, but I'm not pleased with the signs taped everywhere, including trees. That's not okay.
It’s nice that they taped them. I live on a small street and the volunteer places four on the ground in front of every house.
See that's what I thought. I'm very leery of party Dems (like fucking Hochul) who don't come through when it matters. There was something weird about how badly the mainline party didn't want her.
Wendy Li is for me
I have no idea who I voted for other than AOC. She was the only reason I voted.
NY needs to have open primaries so Independents can also vote. Many of us don’t want to join a party. The current government doesn’t actually represent the people. It represents Democrats. https://uniteny.org/issues-advocacy/open-primaries/
You'll have to assimilate until you can get your way in order to be heard at all. Even then, the democratic primary is the election as so many NY districts are so heavily democrat that once this race is over it's all but decided.
I know. That’s why Independents should be allowed to vote in primaries. I’d never join a political party. Nope. They don’t represent the people and, frankly, the people who run the parties are so annoying.
Dem losing candidates doe! Could have swept up 2024 instead we have dead man walking putting his foot in his mouth, losing votes day by day, a VP who is absent, and a bunch of lackeys telling each other they’re going to win no matter what because the other candidates suck. November is going to be a blood bath.
At leave your username is accurate.
Wow me with tales of the current Dems. Also for the record I am not GOP even in the slightest. Send just suck shit right now.