Opinion
June 12, 1967
In a proceeding pursuant to section 330 of the Election Law to validate a petition designating the instant petitioner, an enrolled member of the Democratic Party, as the Liberal Party's candidate for the office of District Attorney of Richmond County in the Primary Elections to be held on June 20, 1967, Frank S. Gannon, the designee for said office in a petition filed for the Republican Party Primary Election, appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Richmond County, dated June 8, 1967, which granted the application and directed the respondent Board of Elections to accept the filing of the Liberal Party's Certificate of Authorization nunc pro tunc as of May 19, 1967. Order reversed, on the law and the facts, without costs, application denied and proceeding dismissed. The last day to file a certificate of authorization by the Liberal Party was May 19, 1967 (Election Law, § 137, subd. 4) and the last day to file a certificate of acceptance by the candidate was May 19, 1967 (Election Law, § 143, subd. 2). It is conceded that both certificates were filed on May 26, 1967. In our opinion, the order of Special Term validating the designating petition was improper because (1) a designating petition is not valid unless, in addition to a timely filing of a certificate of authorization by the party, there is also a timely filing of a certificate of acceptance by the candidate; here the filing of the certificate of acceptance was late and the order appealed from does not authorize the nunc pro tunc filing of the certificate of acceptance; (2) there was no adequate excuse shown for noncompliance by the Liberal Party with the law requiring the certificate of authorization to be filed within three days after the last day to file the designating petition; and (3) in any event, the lapse of seven days between the last day specified by statute for filing the certificate of authorization and the actual date of tardy filing was too long a time to be excused ( Matter of Brodesser v. Power, 21 A.D.2d 751, revd. on other grounds 14 N.Y.2d 769). Christ, Acting P.J., Brennan, Rabin, Hopkins and Munder, JJ., concur.