# Gold v. Feinberg

> Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit · October 8, 1996 · 101 F.3d 796

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6943512

## Case

- **Full name:** Lila GOLD Howard Lasher Delores Vargas Arcadia Rodriguez Audra Rodriguez Gloria Hacken Paul Podhaizer Howard Babbush Pedro Lamboy, Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross-Appellees v. Michael FEINBERG New York City Board of Elections Kenneth Evans, John Sampson Adele Cohen Martin Bromberger, Defendants-Appellees-Cross-Appellants
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
- **Decided:** October 8, 1996
- **Citations:** 101 F.3d 796
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Oakes
- **Judges:** Altimari, Mahoney, Oakes
- **Cited by:** 58 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6943512

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that human errors resulting in the miscounting of votes, the presence of ineligible candidates on ballot, and the late delivery of voting machines to some polling places, did not rise to the level of a constitutional violation because adequate state remedies existed
- finding that "unintended irregularities" in the conduct of elections are not violations of § 1983 when an adequate and fair state remedy exists
- explaining that plaintiffs action arose under equal protection
- finding that New York Election Law § 16-102 provides a fair and adequate remedy for correcting irregularities in a state primary

## Opinion text

OAKES, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur, bound as I am by the precedent of Powell v. Power, 436 F.2d 84 (2d Cir.1970), although the irregularities here were so gross as to call the flat statements in that precedent into serious question. However, to erode Powell , even in cases as fraught with irregularity as these, would put the federal courts in the extremely difficult position of monitoring state primaries as to the extent of election law violations, cases which would involve serious time constraints, difficult questions of cause and effect, and extremely complicated questions of remedy, including whether to order a reeleetion overall or only in certain districts, etc. Thus, though I was initially inclined to agree with District Judge Trager that the facts of these cases and the related cases went beyond the bounds of simple irregularity, on further reflection they still fall short of the intentional deprivation called for by Powell and progeny. Therefore, I am required, reluctantly, to concur.
I cannot help but note my view, however, that the only “abuse” of Judge Trager’s discretion was his hesitance to construe our precedent as strictly as my colleagues did, and I now do. Indeed, I thought he took a very sensible, restrained, and practical approach to an almost impossible series of bureaucratic and official errors resulting in the deprivation of important, fundamental voting rights. Let us hope that a repetition of such will not again occur. ■ Were it to do so, it would, I think, invite this court to look anew at the Powell approach.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6943512. Public record. Not legal advice.