David Orkin, the immigrant rights’ attorney challenging Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar with the support of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, is accusing Rajkumar’s campaign of election fraud and filed a lawsuit in state court on Thursday seeking to have her thrown off the ballot.
State law requires that Assembly candidates submit at least 500 valid petition signatures from registered Democratic voters who live in the district in order to get on the Democratic primary ballot. On March 30, Rajkumar submitted over 2,500 signatures – more than five times the required amount, all but guaranteeing her place on the ballot in the district spanning Ridgewood, Glendale and Woodhaven. (For his part, Orkin submitted more than 1,950 petition signatures by March 31.)
When volunteers on Orkin’s campaign began reviewing Rajkumar’s petitions, they discovered something strange – one of the people listed as signing Rajkumar’s petitions was none other than Cary Tilton, a prominent DSA member and one of Orkin’s own campaign volunteers.
“You can imagine my shock and anger when I saw my own name on a Rajkumar petition sheet with a fraudulent signature,” Tilton told City & State in a statement, noting that he’d actually gathered signatures for Orkin. “Signing this petition would fly in the face of every action and decision I’ve made in years and is an impossibility.”
After that, dozens of DSA volunteers began combing through Rajkumar’s petitions and claim they found still more irregularities. On Thursday, Orkin and one of his supporters sued Rajkumar in Queens Supreme Court. They are asking the court to kick her off the ballot on the grounds that her petitions are full of forged signatures.
“The voters of Assembly District 38 deserve a representative who is willing to do the work of earning their support rather than someone who is comfortable manufacturing it,” Orkin told City & State in a statement.
In a statement, Rajkumar campaign spokesperson Arvind Sooknanan questioned the validity of Orkin’s own signatures, citing a press release from the group Latinos Against Socialism. (No specific objections were ever filed to Orkin’s petition signatures at the New York City Board of Elections or in state court, however.)
“Assemblywoman Rajkumar’s inspiring, tireless grassroots campaign crushed the DSA political machine, collecting nearly 1,000 more signatures and six times the number legally required,” Sooknanan said. “DSA’s mudslinging is a desperate attempt to deflect from serious allegations by Latinos Against Socialism that its petitions are riddled with fraud. No counterattack can distract from those troubling claims.”
In the lawsuit, Orkin only identifies nine specific instances of signatures allegedly being forged. But Orkin’s lawsuit argues each instance of alleged fraud, if confirmed, would impeach the credibility of the petitioner who swore that they had witnessed every single person signing the petition. Those potentially discredited petition witnesses collected over 70% of Rajkumar’s total signatures, according to the lawsuit. In past cases, courts have sometimes thrown candidates off the ballot after finding that their petitions were “permeated” by fraud and irregularity, even though they still technically had enough signatures to meet the threshold.
Rajkumar responded in a court filing Thursday, arguing that Orkin’s objection is “without merit” and that the court should deem her petition “is in all respects valid and in due and proper form and in full compliance with the provisions of the Election Law.” Court cases involving petition challenges are expedited, so the case could go to trial by early May.
Meanwhile, fellow DSA-backed Assembly candidate Conrad Blackburn is crying foul that an ally of his opponent, Assembly Member Jordan Wright, is challenging his petitions and trying to get him thrown off the ballot in the Manhattan primary. “The machine filed a baseless challenge against our signatures because they believe they can deny the working people of Harlem the chance to vote for a true fighter,” Blackburn’s campaign wrote in a statement. “They are trying to use technicalities and anti-democratic maneuvers to override the will of the people.”
