More than 50 signatures on New York mayor Eric Adams’ petition to run as an independent candidate in November’s election are fraudulent, according to a report published on Friday.
The Gothamist said it had found 52 signatures from people who said their names were forged, including signatures of three people who turned out to be dead. The publication cited others who said they were deceived into signing the petitions.
The discovery, if confirmed, is likely to be insignificant to Adams’ independent campaign, which is required to produce 7,500 signatures to qualify him as a candidate. The Adams campaign has turned in nearly 50,000 signatures.
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Still, the finding adds complexity to a race to lead the nation’s largest city that pits the incumbent mayor against Democratic party nominee Zohran Mamdani, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa and ex-prosecutor Jim Walden.
Cuomo and Walden, like Adams, are running as independents.
Flaws in the petition system to gain access to the ballot are likely to be tested in the future as candidates look for ways to circumvent the ranked-choice primary system, the publication said.
Candidates typically employ outside contractors to harvest signatures. In the case of Adams’ petition operation, the irregularities were attributed to at least nine workers who together submitted more than 5,000 signatures.
A single campaign worker collected more than 700 signatures on a single day, the outlet said, adding that some appeared to be submitted in “strikingly similar handwriting among many residents in a single building”.
The Adam’s campaign did not immediately respond to request for comment. But earlier it had told the Gothamist it expected the companies it hired to follow the law, and it would conduct its own review of the signatures.
An attorney for Adams said the mayor did not direct anyone to break the law and that his campaign would “determine whether any corrective action is warranted”.
Veteran election law attorney Jerry Goldfeder told the publication it is not uncommon for invalid signatures to be collected.
“ Every now and again, somebody tries to cut corners, and they’re generally caught and sometimes those cases are referred to the district attorney or the US attorney, and there are prosecutions,” Goldfeder said.
The report comes amid heightened tensions in the city after a gunman killed four people in a midtown office building on Monday, including off-duty New York City police officer Didarul Islam, Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner, security guard Aland Etienne and property manager Julia Hyman.
The Adams administration has urged New Yorkers to seek help and support from mental health services if they find themselves struggling in the aftermath of the attack, while Mamdani is walking back past criticism of the city’s police, saying his prior calls to defund the force were “out of step” with his current thinking.
“I’m not defunding the police,” Mamdani said on Wednesday. “I’m not running to defund the police.
“I am running as a candidate who is not fixed in time, one that learns and one that leads, and part of that means admitting as I have grown. And part of that means focusing on the people who deserve to be spoken about.”
New York City’s mayoral election is scheduled for 4 November.
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