Petitioners Yiyi Shwe and Sein Lwin, a married couple in their 70s from Burma who two years ago became U.S. citizens, brought an application register to vote in the 2024, despite missing the deadline to register by four days.

Queens Supreme Court Justice Scott Dunn denied the application but found that they would be able to vote in subsequent elections. Dunn went further to say that he was "moved" by the couple's determination to exercise their civic duty—expending "considerable time and energy" to cast their ballots in the recent election despite having missed the registration deadline.

"In a world where many run away from responsibility, the Court is in awe of these two individual persons, both proud to be United States citizens, who took their responsibility as citizens so seriously, that they insisted on their right to vote and have refused to abandon their responsibility to vote until they had completely exhausted all efforts to effect it," Dunn wrote, noting that he previously served as chief of Immigration Litigation for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, as part of the naturalization process, "From my vantage point, they are role models for all of us. And here, while no action can be taken to help them vote in this election, the Court takes solace in the fact that going forward, they will be able to vote in each and every future election."

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