Please Note: Although this opinion uses the term “nominating petition,” the same principles also apply to designating petitions and opportunity to ballot petitions.

Digest: A judge may sign a nominating petition to place names of individuals on an electoral ballot regardless of whether the judge is at the time a candidate for judicial office.
 

Rule:  22 NYCRR 100.5;
           Opinion 89-89 (Vol. IV).
 

Opinion:

            A judge inquires if it is permissible to sign a nominating petition placing the names of individuals on an election ballot. The judge is not a candidate for judicial office at the time the signature is solicited.

            This Committee previously advised that a judge may sign a nominating petition to place the names of individuals on an electoral ballot in any year. Opinion 89-89 (Vol. IV). The Committee adheres to the view that signing an election petition is an act akin to voting rather than to campaigning and was not within the intent of the prohibitions against political activities contained in the Rules Governing Judicial Conduct. See generally, 22 NYCRR 100.5. Those Rules do not prohibit a judge from signing a nominating petition, even though the judge is not a candidate for judicial office at the time the signature is solicited.