FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Press@IndependentVeteransOfAmerica.org
A new case led by veterans in NY asks whether the right to vote in a decisive primary comes from citizenship or party membership. The National Campaign kicks off with Oregon, Kansas and Louisiana next.
NEW YORK, October 2, 2026: This week, Independent Veterans of America (IVA); its founder, Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq veteran, 9/11 first responder and independent New York voter; Army veteran Kristen L. Rouse; and the Independent Voter Project (IVP) filed a federal lawsuit challenging New York’s closed primary system.
The case, Rieckhoff v. Berger, No. 1:26-cv-08655, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and announced this week at a press conference outside the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan. The defendants are the commissioners and executive directors of the New York State Board of Elections and of the Board of Elections in the City of New York, sued in their official capacities.
National coverage has quickly followed, including segments on MS NOW, NewsNation, Independent Voter News and more.
You can see the lawsuit, video from the press conference, and key data about independent voters in New York and nationwide HERE.
The lawsuit is the first action of Let Vets Vote, a national campaign by IVA and IVP to open closed primaries to every voter nationwide. It starts in New York. Oregon, Kansas and Louisiana are next, with many more states with closed primaries to follow in the coming months.
Standing outside the federal courthouse in Foley Square, Rieckhoff described the moment that captures the case. At a primary election held at his sons’ public school in lower Manhattan, run with public workers and public machines, his 11-year-old son asked why his father wasn’t voting. “I said, son, I can’t vote because I’m an independent, because I’m not a member of their party,” Rieckhoff said. “My 11-year-old looked at me and goes, ‘Dad, that’s messed up.’ He’s right.”
“We’re told we can’t vote like other New Yorkers simply because we refuse to lie about who we are and join a private party,” Rieckhoff said. “New York’s closed primaries are unfair, un-American, and, we believe, unlawful. We’re used to fighting, we will never quit, and we are prepared to go all the way to the Supreme Court.”
Kristen L. Rouse of Brooklyn, a plaintiff in the case, served 32 years in the U.S. Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard, including three tours in Afghanistan. She founded the NYC Veterans Alliance and served as Deputy Director of the New York State Department of Veterans’ Services. When she moved to Brooklyn after leaving active duty, she enrolled in a party she did not want to join, because it was the only way to vote in the elections that decide who represents her district. She has since withdrawn from party enrollment entirely.
“I signed up for a party that I did not want to belong to,” Rouse said at the courthouse. “It was the only way that I could vote in the deciding elections where I lived. I served my country in uniform for 32 years. I served because I love my country. I did not serve a political party. The State of New York must not require enrollment in a political party as the price for voting in the deciding elections, wherever we live.”
“Our question for the court is, does the right to vote derive from citizenship, or does it derive upon joining a political party?” said lead counsel S. Chad Peace of Peace & Shea LLP, who has represented IVP for some 15 years. Peace noted that the parties themselves are not defendants: “It’s the State of New York that set up a process that took that party apparatus and put it in conflict with the rights of individual voters.”
Samuel Gregory, a Brooklyn attorney of 40 years who serves as local counsel, made the point from inside the system. “I love New York, I love America, I’m a member of a political party,” Gregory said. “But the way the elections are run in New York is just wrong.”
The stakes are concentrated in the primary. In New York City’s 2025 general election, 47 of the 51 City Council seats were decided by more than 20 points, and in 17 districts only one name appeared on the November ballot. Statewide, 3.1 million voters enrolled in no party, a quarter of the electorate, have no primary ballot at all.
The complaint brings four claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, under the First and Fourteenth Amendments: denial of the right to vote at an integral stage of the election process, an unconstitutional condition on the franchise, compelled public disclosure of political affiliation, and denial of equal protection. It asks the court to bar New York from conditioning a voter’s participation in publicly funded, non-presidential primaries on party enrollment, and to give the Legislature time to choose a constitutional system. It does not ask the court to force any party to admit non-members to its nominating process.
IVA and IVP marked the launch at historic Fraunces Tavern, where George Washington, our first and only independent president, said farewell to his officers in 1783. Alberto Ramos of Veterans for All Voters, the campaign’s first co-signatory, told the room why the fight crosses party lines: “When we are doing this work in red states, the Republican Party opposes us. When we’re doing this work in blue states, the Democratic Party opposes us. And that means we are doing something right.”
New York veterans who want to join the case can sign up at LetVetsVote.org, where the complaint, video from the press conference and data on New York’s independent voters are posted. Anyone can add their name to the petition to open New York’s primaries to every voter.
Paul Rieckhoff, Kristen Rouse, Chad Peace, Sam Gregory and Alberto Ramos are all available to speak with media.
See IVA’s data lab website with extensive information about independent veterans and all independent voters nationwide at https://independentveteransofamerica.org/data/
About Independent Veterans of America
IVA was built to identify, inform and unite independent veterans and give them a voice at all levels. Launched on Independence Day 2024, IVA endorsed 11 candidates in its first election cycle, including 4 winners, and has endorsed 24 independent veteran candidates in the 2026 cycle, with more to come. IVA is building the largest community of independent veterans ever assembled, to reform the American election system, put country over party, and elect a new generation of public-servant leaders at the local, state and federal level. Learn more at IndependentVeteransOfAmerica.org.
About the Independent Voter Project
The Independent Voter Project is a nonpartisan organization that has spent fifteen years working to open primary elections to every voter. IVP authored California’s nonpartisan top-two primary (Proposition 14, 2010) and defended it in court, has brought closed-primary challenges in New Jersey, California and Florida, and is backing a California constitutional amendment to protect every voter’s right to participate in publicly funded elections.
About Veterans for All Voters
Veterans for All Voters is a non-partisan nonprofit with a mission to build and mobilize a community of military veterans to advocate for election innovations that unlock competition, make our politics less polarizing and our government more effective. Learn more at VeteransForAllVoters.org.
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