New York Democrats’ Bitter Ballot Fight Fuels Mail-in Voting Worries

(Bloomberg) -- A drawn-out New York City Democratic primary fight over the validity of thousands of disqualified votes has the candidates trading bitter accusations and may also be helping fuel President Donald Trump's attacks on expanded mail-in voting in some states.

Representative Carolyn Maloney and her challenger Suraj Patel are vying for the Democratic nomination for the seat representing Manhattan's upper East Side, including Trump Tower, as well as parts of Brooklyn and Queens. The Democratic primary was held June 23, but has yet to be finalized

Maloney, 74, who's leading the race by 3,700 votes, on Tuesday blasted Patel, saying he's becoming Trump's “mouthpiece” against mail-in voting by refusing to concede defeat and continuing with his legal challenges.

Patel, 36, responded that a federal judge's order on Monday to count more than 800 disputed mailed-in ballots could lead to uncovering even more primary votes wrongly disqualified by election officials.

“I have no reason to concede this race, because we have thousands of ballots left to count,” Patel said. He also questioned why Maloney, chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, would oppose an effort to have the maximum number of eligible votes validated.

Their stand-off comes amid the coronavirus pandemic that has led states across the nation to consider expanding mail-in voting for the general election in November, something Trump has railed against, characterizing it as open to fraud and rigged elections -- at least in some states.

“Our fight is the exact opposite of Donald Trump's,” Patel said. “We are fighting against voter disenfranchisement. He is baselessly claiming voter fraud comes in with vote by mail.”

Trump seized on the problems in the Maloney-Patel primary on Monday.

“This is a small race with literally thousands of people. Small thousands. And it's all messed up,” Trump said. “They're six weeks into it now. They have no clue what's going on.”

But in a turnabout on Tuesday, Trump urged voters in Florida -- a state he carried in 2016 but where he now trails Democrat Joe Biden -- to vote by mail, tweeting that state's system is “Safe and Secure, Tried and True.”

In New York, the order Monday by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres resulted from a lawsuit Patel joined, alleging thousands of mail-in ballots were wrongly disqualified. For instance, New York City election officials had mailed out tens of thousands of ballots just one day before the primary, making it almost impossible for some voters to meet a deadline for postmarking their returns. A winner had been expected to be declared this week, but it's not clear now when the results will be official.

Patel, a progressive lawyer and activist, said during a virtual press conference that the judge's order includes an option to petition for additional injunctive relief if further questionable decisions in sifting through disqualified ballots are uncovered.

He said the focus of his lawsuit isn't voter fraud.

“Unfortunately, what we have seen is that vote by mail is associated with high levels of voter disenfranchisement in states like New York, and frankly in other places,” Patel said.

But Maloney said in a statement that the judge's order to count more than 800 additional mail ballots won't affect the final outcome. She said she is “happy that voters in my district will have their votes counted notwithstanding the postal services mistake.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.