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N.Y. ELN Law § 5-904

This is the official text of N.Y. ELN Law § 5-904, part of New York’s ELN Law — part of the compiled statutory law of New York, published by the state as "ELN Law." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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Presumption of innocent authorized error

Official statutory text

§ 5-904. Presumption of innocent authorized error. 1. Notwithstanding\nsubdivision six of section 5-210 of this article or any other law to the\ncontrary, a person who is ineligible to vote who fails to decline to\nregister or pre-register to vote in accordance with the provisions of\nthis section and did not willfully and knowingly seek to register or\npre-register to vote knowing that the person is not eligible to do so:\n (a) shall not be guilty of any crime as the result of the applicant's\nfailure to make such declination;\n (b) shall be deemed to have been registered or pre-registered with\nofficial authorization; and\n (c) such act may not be considered as evidence of a claim to\ncitizenship.\n 2. Notwithstanding subdivision six of section 5-210 of this article or\nany other law to the contrary, a person who is ineligible to vote who\nfails to decline to register or pre-register to vote in accordance with\nthe provisions of this section, who then either votes or attempts to\nvote in an election held after the effective date of that person's\nregistration, and who did not willfully and knowingly seek to register\nor pre-register to vote knowing that the person is not eligible to do\nso, and did not subsequently vote or attempt to vote knowing that the\nperson is not eligible to do so:\n (a) shall not be guilty of any crime as the result of the applicant's\nfailure to make such declination and subsequent vote or attempt to vote;\n (b) shall be deemed to have been registered or pre-registered with\nofficial authorization; and\n (c) such act may not be considered as evidence of a claim to\ncitizenship.\n

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.