Judge contemplates Temporary Restraining Order in Anthony Frascone/Mondaire Jones/Working Families Party case. [Updated evening of Oct 10]

Election officials would be barred from processing early ballots in the 17th Congressional District election or from printing and distributing ballots naming alleged usurper Anthony Frascone.

In a possible victory for plaintiffs trying to get alleged usurper Anthony Frascone thrown off the Working Families Party line for the 17th Congressional District Elections, Westchester Supreme Court Justice Janet C. Malone asked them to draft a temporary restraining order (TRO) giving the petitioners the relief they are seeking.

The judge’s direction to the petitioners came after a court hearing Wednesday morning in White Plains, in which all of the parties, except Frascone himself, were represented.

The plaintiffs include three Democrats (two of whom are party officials in Putnam and Westchester Counties), one Republican, and a Croton resident who is a member of the WFP, Ricki Rusting (Rusting is also a well-known science writer.)

Election officials have made a number of arguments in favor of keeping Frascone’s name on the ballot, including that the petitioners’ claims were made too late and thus are time-barred; some Republican election officials also intervened in favor of Frascone’s continuing candidacy.

But Frascone himself has never showed up to court, has not sent an attorney, and has done no campaigning at all, thus likely adding weight to accusations that he had sought the Working Families Party nomination in order to siphon votes away from Democratic Party candidate Mondaire Jones. Attorneys for the petitioners have argued that by not showing up or defending his position, Frascone has legally admitted to the accusations against him, including that he got his place on the ballot through fraud.

Judge Malone may have been influenced by a blistering Memorandum of Law filed by the plaintiffs on Tuesday, which made much of the allegation that Frascone is a convicted felon and thus allegedly ineligible for the ballot under New York State law. The plaintiffs also countered arguments by the election officials that their claims were time-barred, arguing that they had been filed in a timely fashion and that changes to a ballot even candidates have been certified is allowed under New York law.

Later in the day on Wednesday, attorneys for the plaintiffs did indeed file a proposed Temporary Restraining Order with the court, which, if she signed it, would halt all processing of ballots in the 17th Congressional District (thousands of early ballots have already been sent out by mail) and also “enjoin them from printing, issuing, or distributing for use during the 2024 General Election any and all further official ballots upon which the name of the Respondent-Candidate [Anthony Frascone] does appear candidate for the Working Families Party…”

The filing of this proposed order generated a flurry of letters of protest during the afternoon and evening from attorneys for defendants in the case (not including Frascone, who remains silent), who implored her not to sign it. Among other objections, the defendants argued that the proposed order went far beyond what the plaintiffs had asked the judge to do during the Wednesday morning hearing, and that having to abide by it would cause “irreparable injury” and disenfranchise those who had already voted in the election.

A decision by the judge whether to sign the proposed order, or to modify it or reject it, is likely to come sometime today. If she does sign it, the parties in the case would then continue to argue over whether the order should be made permanent, for example by barring Frascone’s name from being counted after the November 5 election.

We will update this post as events dictate.

Update: Republican officials had sought to intervene in the case and argue that Frascone should remain on the ballot. The judge ruled this evening that the Chairs of the Dutchess County Republican Committee and the Putnam County Republican Committee, as well as the Vice Chair of the Dutchess County Republican Committee, would not be allowed to intervene. Judge Malone decided that these individuals did not have the right by law to intervene, and that the nature of their intervention was duplicative of the arguments already made by the defendants in the case.

We are still awaiting the judge’s ruling on the proposed TRO.

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