Queens residents say their signatures were forged on ballot petitions
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Several Queens voters living in the South Jamaica Houses said their signatures were forged on a ballot petition used by Queens City Council candidate Ruben Wills, Queens judicial candidate Philip Grant, city comptroller candidate Ismael Malave Perez and public advocate candidate Marty Dolan. Eagle File photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
Several residents of the South Jamaica Houses in Queens say that their names and signatures were forged on a ballot petition sheet collected by a canvasser on behalf of a group of local and citywide candidates attempting to get on the ballot for the upcoming June primary election.
Of the 15 signatures on a petition sheet jointly belonging to public advocate candidate Marty Dolan, comptroller candidate Ismael Malave Perez, Queens judicial candidate Philip Grant and South Queens City Council candidate Ruben Wills, four voters said the signature next to their name was not theirs and denied ever having signed the petition.
One voter, whose name appeared on the sheet alongside her mother, said neither she nor her mother signed the page. Another voter, who was listed on the petition as living in the same apartment with six others, said that not only did she not sign the sheet herself, but that she did not live with the people listed alongside her.
Two residents of the South Jamaica Houses listed on the petition did not respond to the Eagle’s request for comment.
Most of the Queens residents who say their names were forged on the petition sheet live down the hall from or nearby to Latoya LeGrand, who is running for the same Council seat Wills is and whose own name was listed on the petition.
LeGrand’s name was stylized with a lower case “g” on the petition, despite her capitalizing the letter in her surname on campaign literature.
The Eagle attempted to contact LeGrand for comment multiple times and in multiple ways. She did not respond.
Wills and LeGrand are both running in the Democratic primary for Council District 28, which Wills previously represented from 2011 to 2017. The district is currently represented by City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who will be term-limited out of office at the end of the year.
Wills’ campaign is something of an attempt at a political comeback for the former lawmaker after he was wrongfully convicted of corruption while in the Council.
Several voters told the Eagle that their signatures were forged on a ballot petition for several candidates, including Queens City Council candidate Ruben Wills. Photo via Wills/X
District 28 is one of three open seats in Queens this election cycle. Also running in the race are Adams’ Chief of Staff Tyrell Hankerson, community leader Romeo Hitlall and activist Japneet Singh. LeGrand is a community organizer and staffer for State Assemblymember Vivian Cook.
None of the candidates have specifically challenged the validity of the signatures on the petition sheet examined by the Eagle and no candidate has been accused of fraud.
But the Southeast Queens locals the Eagle spoke to on Friday said they were not happy to see their names on a sheet of paper they claim they didn’t sign.
“That's fraud,” said Marcia Pearce, a South Jamaica Houses resident who told the Eagle she did not sign the petition sheet.
“If politicians are doing this, when I need help, they don't come to help,” she said. “You want to put my signature on a piece of paper? That's fraud. But when we need help in the projects, you don't come and help us.”
Pearce said that someone came to her building several weeks ago seeking petition signatures, but she claimed she never gave them her signature. The South Queens resident was also listed on the petition sheet as having six roommates. She said none of them lived at her address.
Pearce recognized one of the names that the sheet said lived in her unit and pointed the Eagle toward another building. No one at the address provided by Pearce responded to the Eagle’s request for comment.
Deborah Branson, another resident who lives a few doors down from LeGrand, also said she didn’t sign her name to the sheet, and demonstrated her signature for the Eagle, showing its differences with the one listed on the petition.
Branson, a Navy veteran who was born in Southeast Queens, has worked as a local election worker. She said she knew of Wills before adding that she plans to support her neighbor, LeGrand, in the primary race.
“I’m pretty close to her,” she said. “In fact, this whole floor is close…We take care of each other.”
“I want [LeGrand] on the ballot,” she added.
Another man, Joseph Benson who lives on the same floor as Branson and LeGrand, had his name written as “JBenson” on the form. He also claimed he didn’t sign it, and that his signature was different from the one on the petition sheet.
In another building, Lelia Allen, whose name was on the sheet, said that she did not sign it, and neither did her mother, who is also listed. Allen’s mother was not home and did not verify her daughter’s claim.
Allen said that she works from home, and would have been home when the petition was allegedly signed on March 26.
But not everyone listed on the sheet said their signature had been improperly put on the petition. One man said a woman living in the apartment with him, Gloria Whales, whose name appeared on the petition, signed it herself. Whales was not available to verify her signature.
The candidates listed on the petition and their lawyers all denied having any knowledge of the alleged discrepancies.
Wills said in a statement through his attorney that he was “proud to be on the ballot after submitting more than 1,800 signatures — over four times the required amount.”
“The people of the 28th Council District have serious issues and concerns to address and I am the most experienced candidate for the job,” Wills added.
Howard Graubard, who represents Dolan, Grant and Perez, said neither he nor his clients had any knowledge of the alleged faked signatures.
“Whatever occurred on the petition, it’s something that our campaigns are not aware of,” Graubard said. “If indeed anything happened, depending on the substance of what happened, the consequences might be extremely minor.”
Dolan said his campaign manager handled most of the petitioning process and that the petition signatures were likely collected by someone who had been hired by a paid consultant, a common practice employed by candidates while going through the tedious process of collecting signatures.
“We took the process very seriously,” Dolan said.
Dolan also said he did not personally know the witness who signed the petition sheet, A’shanti Sharper.
The Eagle attempted to reach Sharper through a number believed to be associated with the South Queens resident but did not receive a response.
The voters in the South Jamaica Houses are far from the first to claim their signatures were falsely written on a Board of Elections document.
In 2022, THE CITY reported that a grassroots political organization in Brooklyn claimed the Brooklyn Democratic Party submitted paperwork with at least two forged signatures to the BOE in an effort to get Democratic challengers booted from the primary ballot.
Also in 2022, New York Focus reported that a canvasser collecting signatures on a petition for multiple candidates in Queens, including then-State Senate candidate Elizabeth Crowley and Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar, forged at least four voters’ signatures.
Candidates have until Monday at midnight to file specific challenges to their opponents’ petitions with the Board of Elections, which does not make rulings on alleged fraud.
Whenever challenges to petitions are made to the BOE, the agency assigns a team of bipartisan clerks to review the claims. The clerks then issue a report, which will be reviewed and voted on by the BOE during a hearing, where both the campaign that challenged the petition and the campaign that is defending the petition can raise exceptions to the report.
Any candidate alleging that a petition has fraudulent signatures would be required to file a “petition to invalidate” in court. Campaigns have until April 17 to file their claims in court.
