Which judges and courts presided over the recent Rockland County rulings and what legal reasoning did they use?

1. Who presided and what court heard these matters

All of the articles and organizational releases available identify the forum as the New York State Supreme Court sitting in Rockland County—the trial‑level court that handles civil election challenges in the county—and they name State Supreme Court Judge Rachel Tanguay as the judge issuing the key orders discussed in the press ^{[4] [1] [2] [3]}. Public court directories and the official Rockland courts pages corroborate that the Supreme Court in Rockland is the proper venue for such civil suits and that opinions and orders from that court are the source documents for these developments ^{[4] [5]}.

2. Dismissal for lack of standing and pleading defects

One news report summarized a decision in which Judge Tanguay dismissed a suit by SMART Legislation seeking a hand recount of 2024 presidential and U.S. Senate results in Rockland, finding the plaintiffs “lacked standing” and failed to satisfy other legal requirements—an invocation of the threshold doctrine that a plaintiff must show a concrete, particularized injury and meet procedural pleading standards before relief can be granted ^[1]. That ruling, as reported by News12 Westchester, frames the court’s action as a gatekeeping exercise: without legally recognized standing or properly pleaded causes of action, the judge concluded the recount claim could not proceed to merits adjudication ^[1].

3. Order permitting discovery in a related election challenge

In contrast, both SMART Elections’ own release and secondary reporting state that Judge Tanguay ordered discovery to proceed in the SMART Legislation case, directing the parties into evidentiary fact‑gathering on topics ranging from chain‑of‑custody and voting‑machine security to communications with vendors—an outcome that reflects a judicial determination that, at least for discovery purposes, the complaint sufficiently alleged factual questions warranting investigation ^{[2] [3]}. SMART’s account highlights that the judge acknowledged organizational injuries in theory but did not automatically confer organizational standing, indicating the court’s nuanced posture: it allowed limited procedural steps while reserving rulings on ultimate legal entitlement ^{[2] [3]}.

4. Legal reasoning, competing narratives, and limits of available reporting

Taken together the reports show Judge Tanguay applying two core strands of trial practice: enforcing standing and pleading requirements to dismiss claims that do not meet legal thresholds, while using the discovery process to test factual assertions when complaints clear a minimal plausibility bar—an approach consistent with New York civil procedure and the role of a Supreme Court justice as fact‑finder at the trial level ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}. The sources diverge in emphasis—News12 foregrounds a dismissal for lack of standing ^[1] while SMART and sympathetic outlets emphasize the discovery order and procedural advance of their case ^{[2] [3]}—and available public records cited here do not resolve apparent contradictions about whether the dismissal and discovery orders are separate rulings in different filings or sequential actions in the same case; the official docket entries and full written orders on the Rockland Supreme Court site or case repositories would be needed to reconcile timing and precise holdings ^{[4] [5] [6]}. No other judges or appellate actions are named in the reporting provided, and there is no contemporaneous public transcription of Judge Tanguay’s full reasoning in the snippets available, which limits definitive conclusions about the scope of her rulings beyond the procedural themes reported ^{[1] [2] [3]}.