Even in a city so blue that the sky looks red by contrast, there is an innate demand to sway voters and give candidates any edge they can get – legal or otherwise.
New York City’s mayoral primaries have been intense; and like any intense election, it was prone to shenanigans. A recent release of audio and images captured by the investigative organization Project Veritas exposed an illegal instance of electioneering, in violation of New York State election law 17-130 and 17-126. 17-130 prohibits, among other things, attempts by workers at polling places to electioneer within 100 feet of an election site. 17-126 prohibits election workers from expressing any form of approval or disapproval of how a voter has voted or revealing the name of the candidate a person has voted for.
The preferred candidate in this case, in the minds of the workers, was Dianne Morales, former Executive Director and CEO of Phipps Neighborhoods, the largest and oldest affordable housing firm in New York.
Morales trails many of her competitors in the NYC mayoral primary. A county interpreter working at this location has since been fired.
However, this may be the least of the worries for those managing this very messing election. New reports have claimed that test ballots were accidentally counted alongside real ones in the first round of voting. This will undoubtedly upend the election results and call into question the integrity of the mayoral race as well as few other elections from recent memory.