An attorney for plaintiffs in this year's overturn of affirmative action programs in college admissions is now helping a group of New York Republicans who asked a state court to declare the Empire State's recent vote-by-mail law unconstitutional.

On Tuesday, New York State Supreme Court Justice Christina L. Ryba of Albany County admitted James F. Hasson, an associate with Consovoy McCarthy, to help represent Republican petitioners in a September lawsuit challenging the recent law that will allow New York voters to vote by mail for any reason beginning Jan. 1, ahead of next year's presidential and congressional races.

Hasson's firm is in Virginia and he is also admitted to practice in Texas, but not New York.

Hasson will help New York Republican plaintiffs, whose attorney of record in the vote-by-mail case is Michael Y. Hawrylchak, of counsel with the Albany firm O'Connell & Aronowitz.

Ryba's appointment came in an order issued Tuesday.

Hasson was one of the lawyers who represented the plaintiff in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, a landmark 6-2 decision in June by the Supreme Court of the United States that ruled its affirmative action program violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

Hasson did immediately return a message from the Law Journal on Wednesday.

On Sept. 20, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the New York Early Mail Voter Act, which will allow any voter to request an early vote by mail ballot for any election up to the day before the election.

It drew a same-day complaint in state Supreme Court from a litany of Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, the GOP conference's chair, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, who allege that mail-in voting is less secure and will unfairly benefit Democrats.

Hochul says GOP-controlled states are attempting to reduce voting rights.

Since the lawsuit's filing, attorneys from Cullen and Dykman of Albany, on behalf of Peter S. Kosinski, co-chair of the New York State Board of Elections, filed court papers suggesting that the New York Democratic-led legislature and Hochul "intentionally disregarded" a 2021 constitutional amendment that had asked to allow all qualified voters to cast ballots by mail for any reason.

The no-excuse absentee voting question failed with 55% opposition from New York voters in 2021.

"These blatant violations of the State Constitution render the Mail Voting Law invalid from its inception," the Cullen attorneys wrote of the legislature and Hochul's ensuing actions.

Cullen attorneys further stated that "all New Yorkers would be irreparably harmed if an election takes place and candidates are placed into office through a process that is held to be unconstitutional."

A response on behalf of Douglas A. Kellner and Andrew J. Spano, commissioners of the state Board of Elections, by board attorney Brian Quail said the law is in fact constitutional, with case law in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania bolstering the argument.

Quail said the new law mandates electronic tracking be made available so that a voter can discern the status of his or her early vote by mail ballot—whether it has been sent, received, or canvassed.  This serves to deter fraud and ensures a voter who has cast such a ballot can know when it was duly received and counted.

Quail goes on to state that the New York constitution, whose origins date to 1777, the first of five iterations, "has never remained long unchanged," and the current 85-year era of the 1938 constitution has been amended dozens of times.

He said courts of last resort in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Delaware have concluded that the plenary power of the legislature to enact mail voting for all was not constrained by a constitutional provision permitting absentee voting for some.

Massachusetts' highest court denied a bid by Republicans in that state to block election officials from putting into effect its mail-in and early voting law in July 2022.

In Delaware, a judge struck a law that would have allowed no-excuse mail-in ballots in October 2022.

That same month, Maryland's top court affirmed a decision to allow local state boards of elections to canvass and count mail-in ballots.