Yesterday, which was Constitution Day (from the Sept. 17, 1787 signing of America’s Great Charter) and Citizenship Day (set as Sept. 17 since 1952) also was National Voter Registration Day, held on a Tuesday in September. In New York City, it was also when the Board of Elections certified the ballot for the Nov. 5 general election. On the back of ballots across the state will be Proposal Number One, “An Amendment to Protect Against Unequal Treatment.” Each ballot explains what the measure does: “This proposal amends Article 1, Section 11 of the New York Constitution. Section 11 now protects against unequal treatment based on race, color, creed, and religion. The proposal will amend the act to also protect against unequal treatment based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes, as well as reproductive healthcare and autonomy. The amendment allows laws to prevent or undo past discrimination.” That brief description accurately and precisely summarizes what the full text of the amendment says. If you think it protects abortion, you might be right. Or maybe not. But unlike voters in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and South Dakota, New Yorkers will not be asked to put explicit protection of abortion rights in the state Constitution. The fault goes to the Democrats in the Legislature in Albany, who wrote a vaguely worded amendment. When the state Board of Elections then correctly summarizes the vagueness, a lawsuit was brought to add the word “abortion” to the ballot. A judge wisely said no and we ended up with the present description. As CBS News reported on the many abortion constitutional ballot questions around the country in the various states, it added: “New York also has a ballot measure that proponents say would protect abortion rights, though there’s a dispute about its impact.” A very connected Democrat told us that the Legislature screwed up. It would have been easy to use the word “abortion” in the amendment. But the Legislature has been messing things up for a very long time. In 1776, the Legislature failed to give any instructions to its delegates to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia; thus New York alone among the 13 colonies abstained on voting on the Declaration of Independence. After the Revolution, when the Constitutional Convention met in Philly in 1787, again New York was missing and was the only state in attendance not to sign the new Constitution 237 years ago yesterday. Alexander Hamilton signed, but only represented himself, not the state. New York then failed to ratify the Constitution until after it was adopted by 10 other states and in effect. The Legislature then failed to choose any of its eight members of the Electoral College for the election of the first president. The state Senate was controlled by the Federalists, who supported the new federal Constitution, and the Assembly was run by the Antifederalists and they deadlocked. The result was that New York was the only state then in the Union that failed to cast any votes for George Washington, who would take office in New York City. The new U.S. Senate, also sitting downtown, achieved its first quorum on April 6, 1789, but the Legislature didn’t appoint New York’s first two senators until late July. The incompetence of the present Legislature carries on a long, pitiful tradition.