2022 Election Cycle - Sept. 23, 2022 - Hochul Campaign Memo 'Lee Zeldin's Election Fraud Scandal'

MEMO: Lee Zeldin's Election Fraud Scandal

TOPLINE: With less than six weeks until Election Day, Republican gubernatorial nominee Lee Zeldin is implicated in a criminal investigation into his campaign’s fraudulent attempt to get on the Independence Party line. Considering Zeldin voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results and has been an outspoken supporter of Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories of voter fraud, Zeldin’s silence is alarmingly hypocritical.

Just over two months ago, the New York State Board of Elections rejected Lee Zeldin’s attempt to get on the Independence Party line for submitting nearly 13,000 invalid petition signatures, which included more than 11,000 photocopied duplicates. According to a new report, Zeldin’s campaign is now implicated in an ongoing criminal investigation by the Albany County District Attorney’s office.

Zeldin campaign’s behavior is glaringly hypocritical given his votes to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which he justified by citing false and debunked claims of widespread fraud peddled by disgraced former President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies.

New York voters deserve to know the truth about the photocopied signatures that appeared in Zeldin’s petition and who is ultimately responsible.

Initial statements by Zeldin campaign staff were insufficient and contradictory. Zeldin’s campaign manager — who signed off on all 47 volumes of signatures — denied any allegations of fraud, stating he was “positive” no staffers made copies because “we run a virtually paper-free campaign and don’t even own a copier.” Later, a spokesperson for the New York Republican Party — whose headquarters served as the final assembly point for the petitions — admitted that “copies of the valid signatures were inadvertently included in the filing.” On Monday, when pressed to respond to the allegations, Zeldin quickly ended his press conference.

Meanwhile, reporting on the scandal has continued to provide evidence of the Zeldin campaign’s involvement. According to Newsday, dozens of photocopied pages were witnessed by senior members of his campaign and nearly half of the photocopied petitions originated from Zeldin’s own backyard in Suffolk County. Even more concerning, two far-right extremist groups involved in the January 6th Capitol riots — the Long Island Loud Majority and Setauket Patriots — were involved in both collecting and signing petitions.

The Times Union confirmed that the final volumes of signatures were assembled at NYS GOP headquarters, allegedly under the supervision of convicted money launderer and longtime GOP operative John Haggerty. Yet attempts by the Zeldin campaign to deflect blame onto Haggerty ring hollow: previous GOP spokesperson statements reveal that the Zeldin campaign and New York Republican Party were “fully integrated on a daily basis.”

Given the gravity of these accusations, NYS Senator Zellnor Myrie called for an investigation into the matter in early August, offering a litany of possible criminal charges that deserve due diligence. On Sunday, Times Union reported that the Albany County District Attorney’s office and the state Board of Elections are moving forward with an investigation. When asked a day later about the ongoing criminal investigation, Zeldin went quiet.

After months of non-answers and finger-pointing, and the potential of this scheme to result in legitimate criminal charges, New Yorkers deserve to know who exactly was involved in Lee Zeldin’s election fraud scandal.

This isn’t the first time Zeldin has faced allegations of fraud. During his 2016 and 2018 congressional runs, Lee Zeldin sent a campaign mailer that incorrectly listed the deadline to return absentee ballots. In 2020, Zeldin voted against the presidential election results and continues to push baseless conspiracy theories under the banner of “election integrity.”

As someone seeking the highest office in the state at a time when our democracy is under threat around the country, Lee Zeldin must be held accountable.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Libertarian Party Secretary Andrew Kolstee: “Republicans talk a lot about election integrity…but the Zeldin campaign attempted to fly under the radar and submit over 11,000 fraudulent signatures in an attempt to get a third line on the ballot […] The Zeldin campaign’s attempt to defraud the electorate and pose as an independent campaign by filing thousands of photocopied signatures is a slap in the face to New York State voters and the election process.”
Election Law Expert and Former New York City Councilman Henry Berger: “This one is not complicated. This is simple, blatant fraud.”
NYS Senator and Senate Elections Committee Member Shelley Mayer: “I’ve never seen anything of this magnitude… There are crimes here.”
Election Law Expert and Attorney Sarah Steiner: “My reaction to it was, ‘wow’… Unless somebody accidentally mixed in pages that they had photocopied and then paginated them, in which case they would still be invalid, that’s a massive attempt at fraud […] That sounds like a deliberate attempt to pad the petition.”
Former NY Governor David Paterson: “Zeldin… has refused to condemn what is a blatant violation of the public trust and our very democracy.”
U.S. Congressman and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler: “Lee Zeldin pushed Trump’s big lie & now, it seems like he’s doing exactly what he baselessly accused Biden of: defrauding voters. Fortunately, he’s too incompetent to get away with it. NYers deserve a Governor with integrity like [Governor Hochul]—and Lee deserves an investigation.”
Times Union Editorial Board: “Mr. Zeldin purports to be a stickler for the integrity of other elections but seems rather unconcerned about apparent violations that stand to benefit his own campaign. We would find the hypocrisy astonishing, if it weren’t so depressingly predictable.”
Post-Journal Editorial Board: “[B]efore voters give their support to Zeldin, his campaign needs to come clean. This isn’t just about election gamesmanship. This is about trust…”

TIMELINE OF KEY EVENTS

July 14: City & State reports that the New York State Board of Elections rejected Lee Zeldin’s petition to get on the Independence Party line, citing nearly 13,000 invalid signatures—about 11,000 of which were photocopied duplicates.
July 28: The New York Times reports that Zeldin’s own campaign manager had signed off on all 47 volumes of petition signatures and that other paid senior campaign staffers had witnessed some of the photocopied pages, directly contradicting the campaign’s claims that the process had been “an entirely grass-roots effort.”
August 4: NYS Senator Zellnor Myrie calls on Albany County DA David Soares to investigate why and how the photocopied duplicates appeared in the petitions, specifically mentioning Zeldin’s campaign manager and citing a number of possible criminal charges.
August 15: Reporting from Times Union’s Chris Bragg confirms that the fraudulent signatures were ultimately assembled at the New York Republican headquarters before being submitted.
August 15: Reporting from Newsday confirms that the Zeldin campaign paid the far-right extremist group Long Island Loud Majority to help gather their petitions.
September 8: More reporting from Newsday highlights that nearly half of the photocopied documents came from Zeldin’s backyard in Suffolk County, with a significant number having been witnessed by top campaign staffers and the leader of another far-right group, the Setauket Patriots, which bussed people to the January 6 Capitol riots.
September 18: The Albany County District Attorney’s office and the state Board of Elections announce they are moving forward with an investigation focusing on who took part in the photocopying effort and whether or not top GOP party officials were involved.

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Libertarian Party of New York
July 14, 2022

Libertarian Party and Sare Campaign Successfully Invalidate Lee Zeldin’s “Independence Party” Petition

Lee Zeldin petition included 11,000 photocopied signatures. NY Board of Elections invalidated Independence Party in 2022 election.

ALBANY, NEW YORK, July 14, 2022 – In their meeting on Monday, July 11, 2022, the Commissioners at the New York State Board of Elections declared the Independence Party petition invalid due to an insufficient number of signatures. The Independence Party statewide slate consisted entirely of the Republican Party’s slate led by Congressman Lee Zeldin for Governor. In addition to the Independence Party line, the Republican Party slate also filed petitions for the Parent Party, but it was ruled insufficient and invalid after a prima facie review by the New York State Board of Elections. (Note: since this was a Board of Elections hearing, there is no court case number. The hearing notice can be found here, and the official summary of the findings invalidating the Zeldin petition can be found here).

Lee Zeldin’s attempt to secure the 45,000+ signatures by submitting over 52,000 raw signatures passed the prima facie review. However, a challenge mounted by a team of Libertarian Party officials and volunteers associated with the Diane Sare for Senate campaign discovered that over 900 sheets, containing over 11,000 signatures were merely photocopies of original sheets also submitted by the Zeldin campaign, in an alleged attempt to fraudulently represent that the petition contained the requisite number of signatures.

“This was the Republican Party’s attempt to reestablish the Independence Party of New York, which lost ballot access in 2020. The so-called Independence Party has drifted from its original meaning in order to take advantage of New York’s fusion voting and misleadingly garner support from unwitting independent voters,” said Andrew Kolstee, Secretary of the Libertarian Party, and objector to the Independence Party petitions. “In this case, the Republican Party attempted to use this tactic all the while continuing to pander to their Republican base, which is outnumbered 2:1 by the Democrats, instead of reaching out to voters all across the political spectrum. The Libertarian Party has successfully reached voters all across the political spectrum, something our candidate for Governor, Larry Sharpe, does very well.”

“Republicans talk a lot about election integrity,” said Kolstee, “but the Zeldin campaign attempted to fly under the radar and submit over 11,000 fraudulent signatures in an attempt to get a third line on the ballot, while New York’s oppressive ballot access laws, which were changed in 2020 to prevent third parties from getting on the ballot, prevent voter choice. One can only determine if a petition sheet is a photocopy if the physical petition sheets are examined in person. The Zeldin campaign’s attempt to defraud the electorate and pose as an independent campaign by filing thousands of photocopied signatures is a slap in the face to New York State voters and the election process.”

“The Independence Party petition was passed by officials in the Republican Party, who did not need to pass any petitions to get Zeldin on the line for the Republican Party due to the party’s status as a ballot access party, while Zeldin’s Republican primary opponents required 15,000 signatures for a spot on the primary ballot. Meanwhile, unrecognized political parties such as the established Libertarian and Green Parties required 45,000 signatures to get on the ballot. The fact that candidates such as Lee Zeldin, a sitting Congressman backed by the Republican Party establishment as well as multi-millionaire Harry Wilson, who failed to qualify for a spot on the ballot under the Unite Party, shows that the increase of the signature threshold was meant to prevent any other candidate outside of the Republican and Democrats from qualifying. This is further demonstrated by the retroactive reversal of the ballot access that Larry Sharpe qualified for when he ran for Governor in 2018.”

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The Libertarian Party of New York is a political party in New York State, which has as its primary objective the extension of individual freedom to its furthest limits. In recognition of the fact that the initiation of force by government has been the chief instrument for the expropriation of individual rights and freedom, the Libertarian Party of New York enters the political arena for the avowed purpose of eliminating the intervention of government in moral, social and economic affairs by functioning as a libertarian political entity separate and distinct from all other political parties or movements and moving public policy in a libertarian direction by building a political party that elects Libertarians to public office. Learn more at LPNY.ORG.