Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), the Republican nominee in Recent York’s gubernatorial race who backed former President Donald Trump’s false election fraud claims, is facing claims that he submitted fake signatures to get an extra line on the ballot within the November election.
The Recent York State Board of Elections scrapped 12,868 of the 52,096 signatures submitted by Zeldin in his campaign’s try and also get on the state’s Independence Party ballot line in November, in line with the Gotham Gazette. Under Recent York’s voting system, candidates are allowed to seem on a couple of party line on the ballot, the outlet reports.
The tossed-out signatures put Zeldin under the variety of 45,000 valid signatures needed so as to add a 3rd party to the ballot, The Hill reported.
The motion stemmed from a challenge by Andrew Kolstee, secretary of the state’s Libertarian Party, and Diane Sare, an independent U.S. Senate candidate.
The Libertarian Party claimed greater than 11,000 of the tossed-out signatures were photocopies of previously submitted signatures, the news site reported.
“The Zeldin campaign’s try and defraud the electorate and pose as an independent campaign by filing hundreds of photocopied signatures is a slap within the face to Recent York State voters and the election process,” Kolstee said in a press release.
Zeldin has an “outside shot” of appearing on the road if a judge overturns the board’s decision, in line with the Albany Times-Union.
A Zeldin spokesperson told the Gotham Gazette that the campaign denied making “any photocopies.”
Sarah Steiner, a veteran election lawyer, told the news site it didn’t surprise her that each one the signatures on the petition weren’t valid.
“Unless someone unintentionally mixed in pages that they’d photocopied after which paginated them, through which case they might still be invalid, that’s an enormous attempt at fraud,” Steiner said.
Jay Jacobs, chair of the state’s Democratic Party, noted to the Albany Times-Union that Zeldin backed Trump’s claims of election fraud back in 2020.
“Zeldin submitting 11,000 fake signatures just emphasizes his hypocrisy and proves he’s willing to sell Recent Yorkers one other ‘big lie’ to learn his failing campaign,” Jacobs said.
The newspaper identified that Zeldin has an Election Integrity Task Force page on his campaign site.
Zeldin was among the many Republicans in Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
He is about to stay on the Conservative Party line along along with his running mate — lieutenant governor nominee Alison Esposito — when he faces off against Gov. Kathy Hochul and Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado in November.
