After significant setbacks in Wisconsin and Colorado, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump needs a major victory in his home state of New York on April 19. Hence why the White House hopeful touted the non-endorsement of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and toured the 9/11 museum for a photo op. Even Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, has been campaigning for her father — praising his “100 percent” support of women’s rights and educating New Yorkers about the primary voting process. Which is interesting because neither she nor her brother Eric ever registered to vote in the New York primary.
According to Politico, Trump called in to the Fox News Channel morning show Fox & Friends to explain the situation on Monday:
“They were unaware of the rules and they didn’t register. So they feel very, very guilty. They feel very guilty, but it’s fine. I understand that. I think they have to register a year in advance and they didn’t, so Eric and Ivanka I guess won’t be voting!”
Primary voters in New York must register to participate by late March. However, if anyone who is a previously registered voter in the state wants to change their party affiliation, they must do so six months in advance of the April 19 primary. As Gothamist pointed out at the time, that’s because an “obscure bit of election law” from 1976 requires pre-registered New Yorkers to file the party change the year before the primary and general election. This is the earliest deadline for a party change in the country, and the only one that doesn’t fall within the same year as the primary.
This is interesting for two reasons. One, because it means Ivanka (34) and Eric (32) were already registered to vote in the state of New York, but had affiliated themselves with another party. Voting records obtained in January confirm this, as the Daily Mail discovered that Trump, Melania and Ivanka had never voted in the New York Republican primary before.
And the second? Despite being “unaware of the rules” and not registering as a result, Ivanka — like most of the Trump family — has been campaigning for her father since the beginning. Her most recent contribution was to star in a short YouTube video discovered by Elliott Schwartz informing New York voters about the upcoming primary on April 19. Anyone who had any questions about the process, she said, could go to DonaldJTrump.com/NewYork for more information.
Among other things, the information included on the Trump campaign’s New York primary website featured a section titled, “REQUIREMENTS TO VOTE FOR TRUMP.” Chief among the stipulations listed was the fact that, “For already registered voters, any change to party enrollment was to have been requested by October 9, 2015 in order for it to have gone into effect and be applicable for any primary election occurring in 2016 or beyond.”
Oops.
(Via Politico, Gothamist, the Daily Mail and Elliott Schwartz on Twitter)