New York State Assembly candidate Marie Mirville-Shahzada may be at risk of being kicked off the primary ballot after 90 percent of the signatures on her nominating petition were invalidated, including two dead voters’, according to a report.
The New York Post wrote that Mirville-Shahzada and her slate of Democrat district leaders may be removed from the primaries on Coney Island because 90 percent of her 5,258 total signatures have been invalidated by the city Board of Elections. Roughly 3,000 people who signed the petitions lived outside of the district or were not registered to vote.
The Post found that at least two signatures are of dead voters, and a third signature is of a woman whose family said she was not in New York on the day she allegedly signed the nominating petition.
Lucia Gelbfish’s family said she did not sign the petition and that her “blood pressure would go through the roof” if she knew that her signature had been forged.
Sharon Gelbfish, Lucia’s daughter, said, “I was a little incensed only because years ago you didn’t hear things like this. This is our democracy nowadays. It’s very sad.”
The Post continued:
Attempts to reach relatives of the deceased voters were unsuccessful, but Social Security records noted they both passed in 2010.
Mirville-Shahzada now has a meager 479 valid signatures, which is 21 short of the 500 threshold to run for Assembly against fellow Democrat Chris McCreight, the chief of staff to the former left-leaning City Councilman Justin Brannan.
“This is why people lose faith in government, because you have people running for office who are willing to lie and cheat because they can’t compete by following the rules,” McCreight said.
“It’s dead wrong and should not be tolerated when anybody, of any party, does it,” he added.
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