NY’s Election ‘Line Warming’ Ban Must Face Constitutional Claims

The Brooklyn Branch of the NAACP got a green light from a federal court in New York to proceed with most of its constitutional challenges to the state’s “line warming” ban, which makes it a misdemeanor for anyone to provide food, drink, or other “provision” to people waiting in line to vote.

Voters in “Black and Brown communities” have historically suffered disproportionately longer wait times to vote, which reduces their participation in the process, according to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The group had wanted to make “the burdensome and difficult experience of waiting in line ...