N.Y. State Law § 128: Saving clause

§ 128. Saving clause. a. If the districts described in this article do

not carry out the purposes thereof, because of unintentional omission;

duplications; overlapping areas; erroneous nomenclature; lack of

adequate maps or descriptions of political subdivisions, wards, or other

divisions thereof, or of their boundary line; street closings, changes

in names of streets, or other changes of public places; alteration of

the boundary or courses of waters or waterways, filling in or lands

under water, accretion or other changes in shorelines; or alteration of

courses, rights of way, or lines of public utilities or other

conditions, then the state board of elections, at the request of any

person aggrieved thereby, or any candidate affected thereby shall, by

order, correct such omissions, overlaps, erroneous nomenclature, or

other defects in the description of districts so as to accomplish the

purposes and objectives of this article.

b. In promulgating such orders, the state board of elections, in

addition to achieving equality in the population of districts and

insuring that all areas of the state are completely and accurately

encompassed in such districts, shall be guided by the following

standards:

(1) Gaps in the description of any district shall be completed in a

manner which results in a total description of that district consonant

with the description of adjacent districts and in complete contiguity of

districts.

(2) Areas of the state included within the descriptions of more than

one district shall be allocated to the district having the lowest

population.

(3) Areas of the state not included within the descriptions of any

district shall be allocated to the adjacent district having the lowest

population.

(4) In the event that the area subject to corrected description or

allocation as provided in paragraph one, two or three of this

subdivision is of such size or contains such population that its

inclusion as a unit in any district would result in substantial

disparity in the size, shape or population of such district, then the

state board of elections may allocate portions of such area to two or

more districts.

(5) In any allocation of area or correction of descriptions made

pursuant to this section, the state board of elections shall, consistent

with the foregoing standards, preserve the contiguity and compactness of

districts and avoid the unnecessary division of political subdivisions.

c. Copies of such orders shall be filed by the state board of

elections in its own office and in the office of the affected boards of

election. A copy of each such order shall also be filed by the state

board with the legislative bill drafting commission to facilitate it in

performing its functions under section seventy-b of the public officers

law. In addition, a copy of such order shall be served upon the person

or candidate, if any, who instituted the application for such an order.

The state board of elections may adopt reasonable rules regulating the

procedure for applications for orders under this section in the manner

of serving and filing any notice or copy of orders relating thereto.

d. Upon the filing of such an order, the description of any affected

district shall be deemed to have been corrected in the manner provided

in such order to the full extent as if such correction had been

contained in the original description set forth in this article.

e. In furtherance of effectuating the provisions of subdivision d of

this section, the legislative bill drafting commission, upon receipt

from the state board of elections of an order promulgated pursuant to

subdivision b of this section, and upon the approval of the temporary

president of the senate and the speaker of the assembly, shall cause the

description of a senate district or assembly district altered pursuant

to any such order to be revised accordingly within its data base of the

laws of the state of New York so that such altered district may be

contained in a publication of the state law and be certified to as a

correct transcript of the text of law relating thereto such district in

the manner authorized by section seventy-b of the public officers law.