Here's what it's like trying to get on a ballot

I’ve spent 17 years as a business attorney negotiating mergers and acquisitions and other complex transactions worth billions of dollars. I’ve read thousands of pages of dense legal contracts for a living. And I couldn’t successfully navigate the process of getting my name on a ballot in Suffolk County.

That’s not a confession. It’s an indictment.

I ran for Congress as an independent in New York’s 1st Congressional District. I needed at least 3,500 signatures from registered voters just to appear on the ballot. I came up short.

But what I experienced across Suffolk County should concern everyone on Long Island, regardless of party.

I had hundreds of conversations with Republicans, Democrats and independents. The frustration with both major parties is real, widespread and largely unrepresented. Many voters I met do not strongly support either party. Instead, I found people who feel trapped, forced to pick the lesser of two evils every cycle while watching Long Island’s biggest problems go unaddressed.

One conversation stays with me. I spoke with a registered Republican who told me within the first minute he was staunchly opposed to abortion. I favor abortion rights. We disagreed and we both knew it. But we talked for 20 minutes about the cost of living, raising a family here, and what it takes to get by on Long Island. He signed my petition. Not because we agreed on everything, but because he believed Long Island deserved a representative who would actually show up and listen.

That interaction was the norm.

Yet the system is designed to ensure that voters like him never get that choice. New York’s independent petition requirements are among the most burdensome in the country. Major party candidates need a fraction of the signatures that an independent does (1,250 vs. 3,500). The collection window is narrow. The rules are technical enough that even valid signatures routinely get thrown out on procedural grounds, such as listing the village or hamlet and not the township — which many voters did. This isn’t about protecting ballot integrity. It’s about protecting incumbents.

If I found the process difficult to navigate as an attorney, imagine what it looks like to those not used to fine print who want to run. That’s by design.

I didn’t take a single donation. No PAC money. No special interest funding. I ran this campaign on my own dime because I wanted to prove a point: You shouldn’t need to sell yourself to donors to run for office. You just need to show up.

And what I found confirmed something I already suspected. We’re far more aligned than the money wants us to believe. The special interest dollars that flow into our politics don’t just fund campaigns. They fund division. They need us to split into teams so we don’t notice we agree on the things that actually matter: Our taxes are too high (especially with the SALT cap snapping back to $10,000 in 2030), our infrastructure is crumbling, and nobody in Washington is fighting for Long Island.

Some people told me an independent couldn’t win. But what I also heard over and over was more damning: Someone should try. Long Island voters want representatives who answer to our community first. Not to party leadership in Albany or Washington. They want someone who asks a simple question: Does this help Long Island? The machinery of ballot access makes it difficult for anyone outside the two-party system to even ask.

The conversations I had revealed something the ballot won’t show: The appetite for independent representation on Long Island isn’t fringe. It’s far broader than our political system acknowledges.

New York can fix this. Lower the signature thresholds for independents. Extend the collection window. Standardize the validation process so valid signatures aren’t discarded on technicalities. These aren’t radical reforms. They are basic democratic hygiene.

Until then, the two-party stranglehold wins by default.

I didn’t make the ballot this time. But I’m not going anywhere. And the next person who tries this shouldn’t have to fight the system just to give Long Island a choice.

Ian R. Cohen is an attorney and the founder of IRC Legal in Dix Hills.