Miranda is back on ballot for Queens borough president

Photo via Anthony Miranda’s campaign/Facebook

By David Brand

Former NYPD Sergeant Anthony Miranda will appear on the ballot in the special election for Queens borough president after successfully challenging his exclusion in Queens Supreme Court Monday.

Miranda, a police reform advocate running a progressive campaign, was dropped from the March 24 ballot due to a clerical error — his campaign submitted an incorrect amended cover sheet that was missing one specific line. Justice Rudolph Greco presided over the case and reinstated Miranda, the Board of Election confirmed.

“Obviously our lawyer did an exceptional job in presenting the facts and the judge understood it for what it was,” Miranda said. “It was an exercise to both waste money and resources, and to spend seven days of negativity.”

The amended cover sheet that the Miranda campaign submitted with his petition signatures specifically lacked a line stating that person submitting the form was authorized to do so. Miranda criticized the Board of Election petitioning rules, which nearly forced him out of the race. 

“They could have cured that by a phone call,” he said. “They didn’t need to take this extreme action.”

“These rules are not meant to disenfranchise people or to knock minority candidates off the ballot, their purpose was to prevent fraud or corruption. But it’s 2020 now and those rules were made before we had the technology we have now,” he added. 

Six other candidates will also appear on the special election ballot.  They are Councilmember Costa Constantinides, former Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley, former Queens prosecutor James Quinn, Councilmember Donovan Richards and tech entrepreneur Dao Yin.

Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer will also be on the ballot even though he exit the race last month. He had already filed petition signatures by the time he made his decision to drop out.