Opportunity to Ballot

OTB

The “opportunity to ballot” option lets voters write in a candidate at a primary election of their political party.

How does the opportunity to ballot work?

In NY, we have primary elections for "major parties" - the parties who received more than 50,000 votes for governor in the last statewide race. This year, the NY major parties (as listed by the NYS Board of Elections) are: Democratic, Republican, Conservative, Green, Working Families, Independence, Women's Equality, and Reform.

Any registered voter in a major party can petition for the party to have an "opportunity to ballot" option. The petition process is similar to the process for any other candidate, and requires the same number of signatures from party voters as an identified candidate would need to collects.

If the Board of Elections approves of the petition, then that party primary's ballot will have a little box where people can write in the name of a candidate. And, the party primary ballot could have an OTB option along with an identified candidate.

Take a look at the primary ballot map - this is how candidates and opportunities to ballot will appear in the primary on September 12!

Opportunity to Ballot - Sample + Explanation

Why do people petition for the opportunity to ballot?

One idea behind the opportunity to ballot is that it can help promote competition in elections, giving voters freedom to nominate a candidate of their choosing - without the opportunity to ballot, there might be no contest at all in some seats.

Sometimes the party organization initiate the petitions for OTB to make sure the party has a presence on the ballot in a particular race.

And in some cases, candidates running in other major parties have organized efforts to get their names on multiple ballot lines for the general election, whether or not the parties sanctioned them.