Maloney expands NY-12 lead, but Patel won’t concede until lawsuit resolved
/
Incumbent Rep. Carolyn Maloney leads challenger Suraj Patel by 4 percent of the vote after all valid ballots were counted in the Democratic Primary for New York’s 12th Congressional District. Photos courtesy of the campaigns
By David Brand
Veteran Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney has secured a 4 percent lead in the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th Congressional District with all valid ballots counted, but her top opponent has refused to concede until a judge determines the fate of thousands of disqualified mail-in votes.
Suraj Patel acknowledged Maloney’s lead following a count of 95,000 ballots, but he vowed to continue a lawsuit he and others filed against the state Board of Elections to count 12,000 tossed-out votes from residents of Western Queens, northwest Brooklyn and the east side of Manhattan.
“Courts have held that you are not entitled to a perfect election, but you are entitled to a free and fair one,” Patel said in a statement. “Unfortunately, in ours, thousands of voters never received their ballots, and for those who returned their ballots by mail, nearly 25% were rejected.”
One-in-five mail-in ballots for the NY-12 Democratic primary were invalidated by the Board of Elections, The Intercept reported July 16. The vast rejection rate garnered national attention and prompted all four NY-12 candidates — Maloney, Patel, Lauren Ashcraft and Pete Harrison — to release a joint statement urging the BOE to count every absentee ballot that was invalidated because the U.S. Postal Service did not postmark the envelope or because the BOE received the ballots after June 30.
Patel went even further, suing the BOE and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reinstate those disqualified ballots. An executive order issued by Cuomo in April enabled nearly all registered voters to cast their ballot by mail if they submitted an absentee ballot application.
Even if those ballots are counted, Maloney, who has served in Congress since 1993, is likely to hang on to victory. “The Congresswoman is delighted, now that the Board of Elections has finished their preliminary scans of absentee ballots, to have a decisive winning margin of over 3,700 votes,” her campaign said in a statement.
She led Patel by 648 votes after the machine tally following the June 23 Democratic primary and built her lead from 1.6 percent on Election Day to about 4 percent after the valid absentee votes were counted.
Nevertheless, the lawsuit result could set a precedent ahead of the November general election with President Donald Trump attacking the prospect of millions of voters casting their ballots by mail.
“As we approach the November election, the Trump administration has certainly been laying the groundwork for demonizing voting by mail; installing a polarizing Postmaster General at the USPS, and waging a years-long fight against the Voting Rights Act,” Patel said. “New York needs to take the lead and count every vote.”
