IN RE: Helen MERBER (2019)

Orders, Supreme Court, New York County (Carol R. Edmead, J.), entered May 2, 2019, which granted petitioners' request for an order pursuant to article 16 of the Election Law declaring valid, proper, sufficient and legally effective the petitions on behalf of petitioners designating them as candidates for election to the Democratic Party Positions of Members of the Democratic Party Committee from the 67th and 69th Assembly Districts, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Petitioners' article 16 special proceedings should be deemed timely because petitioners did not receive notice that their designating petitions contained defects within the 14–day statutory period prescribed by Election Law § 16–102(2) and they acted with due diligence by promptly commencing the article 16 proceeding after that period ended (see Matter of Pell v. Coveney, 37 N.Y.2d 494, 496, 373 N.Y.S.2d 860, 336 N.E.2d 421 [1975];  Matter of Jones v. Sachs, 133 A.D.2d 195, 196, 518 N.Y.S.2d 700 [2d Dept. 1987], lv denied 71 N.Y.2d 803, 527 N.Y.S.2d 769, 522 N.E.2d 1067 [1988];  Matter of Musolino v. New York State Bd. of Elections, 89 A.D.2d 1033, 1033, 454 N.Y.S.2d 342 [3d Dept. 1982] ).

Petitioners' designating petitions were not facially defective because they substantially complied with the Election Law (Matter of Rosen v. McNab, 25 N.Y.2d 798, 799, 303 N.Y.S.2d 660, 250 N.E.2d 709 [1969] ).  Here, the designating petitions merely omitted the city, state and/or zip codes of the candidates' residences.  Where a petition only contains errors regarding an incorrect or incomplete address, including where the name of the city is omitted, a petitioner has substantially complied with the Election Law and their designating petitions should not be invalidated as defective (see e.g. Matter of Ferris v. Sadowski, 45 N.Y.2d 815, 817, 409 N.Y.S.2d 133, 381 N.E.2d 339 [1978];  Matter of King v. Sunderland, 175 A.D.2d 896, 896–897, 573 N.Y.S.2d 517 [2d Dept. 1991];  Matter of Toporek v. Beckwith, 32 A.D.3d 684, 685, 821 N.Y.S.2d 685 [4th Dept. 2006] ).

We have considered respondent's remaining arguments and find them unavailing.