Nickie Kane v. Seamus Campbell, et al.

This petition presents federal constitutional questions concerning due process, equal protection, ballot access, court access, and the burden imposed on pro se indigent candidates in emergency Election Law proceedings.

1. Whether the First and Fourteenth Amendments permit a candidate to be removed from the ballot where the Board of Elections processed specifications of objections that the candidate did not receive, where the proof of service was internally inconsistent, and where the Board refused to provide the specifications or allow examination of the original proof of service before acting.

2. Whether due process is violated when a Board of Elections treats service of specifications as valid solely because an objector used an overnight delivery method, even where the delivery service failed to actually deliver the specifications to the candidate and the candidate was denied access to the specifications before the Board acted.

3. Whether strict service requirements in emergency Election Law proceedings, as applied to a pro se indigent candidate who cannot afford a process server, impose an unconstitutional burden on ballot access and court access.

4. Whether New York City process-server regulations, including licensing and repeated-service restrictions, compound the unconstitutional burden on pro se indigent candidates in expedited Election Law proceedings. 5. Whether due process and ballot access are violated when emergency Election Law service rules require a pro se indigent candidate to use third-party service or personal service first, even though less burdensome methods such as email, NYSCEF, overnight delivery, certified mail, or party-accessible service methods are reasonably calculated to give notice.

5. Whether due process is violated when a court signs and uploads an Order to Show Cause late in the day, despite the papers being filed well in advance, leaving a pro se candidate little time to print, assemble, and serve papers before strict Election Law deadlines.

6. Whether the Board of Elections violated due process by refusing to hear Petitioner’s abuse-of-process claim that the objection process was being used to harass and target her campaign.

7. Whether the Appellate Division should have treated Petitioner’s challenge to the refusal to sign an Order to Show Cause for sanctions and protective relief as an application under CPLR 5704(a), where Petitioner was self-represented and had been advised by court staff to file in the same manner as an appeal.

8. Whether due process and equal protection were violated where RespondentObjector’s attorney accepted representation adverse to Petitioner despite a prior adversarial history, including a prior attorney complaint filed by Petitioner against him, failed to disclose that history to the court, and then allegedly engaged in courthouse conduct that affected Petitioner’s ability to participate safely and fairly in an expedited Election Law hearing.