MEMO: Lee Zeldin’s Election Fraud Scandal
TOPLINE: With less than six weeks until Election Day, Republican gubernatorial nominee Lee Zeldin is implicated in a criminal investigation into his campaign’s fraudulent attempt to get on the Independence Party line. Considering Zeldin voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results and has been an outspoken supporter of Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories of voter fraud, Zeldin’s silence is alarmingly hypocritical.
Just over two months ago, the New York State Board of Elections rejected Lee Zeldin’s attempt to get on the Independence Party line for submitting nearly 13,000 invalid petition signatures, which included more than 11,000 photocopied duplicates. According to a new report, Zeldin’s campaign is now implicated in an ongoing criminal investigation by the Albany County District Attorney’s office.
Zeldin campaign’s behavior is glaringly hypocritical given his votes to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which he justified by citing false and debunked claims of widespread fraud peddled by disgraced former President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies.
New York voters deserve to know the truth about the photocopied signatures that appeared in Zeldin’s petition and who is ultimately responsible.
Initial statements by Zeldin campaign staff were insufficient and contradictory. Zeldin’s campaign manager — who signed off on all 47 volumes of signatures — denied any allegations of fraud, stating he was “positive” no staffers made copies because “we run a virtually paper-free campaign and don’t even own a copier.” Later, a spokesperson for the New York Republican Party — whose headquarters served as the final assembly point for the petitions — admitted that “copies of the valid signatures were inadvertently included in the filing.” On Monday, when pressed to respond to the allegations, Zeldin quickly ended his press conference.
Meanwhile, reporting on the scandal has continued to provide evidence of the Zeldin campaign’s involvement. According to Newsday, dozens of photocopied pages were witnessed by senior members of his campaign and nearly half of the photocopied petitions originated from Zeldin’s own backyard in Suffolk County. Even more concerning, two far-right extremist groups involved in the January 6th Capitol riots — the Long Island Loud Majority and Setauket Patriots — were involved in both collecting and signing petitions.
The Times Union confirmed that the final volumes of signatures were assembled at NYS GOP headquarters, allegedly under the supervision of convicted money launderer and longtime GOP operative John Haggerty. Yet attempts by the Zeldin campaign to deflect blame onto Haggerty ring hollow: previous GOP spokesperson statements reveal that the Zeldin campaign and New York Republican Party were “fully integrated on a daily basis.”
Given the gravity of these accusations, NYS Senator Zellnor Myrie called for an investigation into the matter in early August, offering a litany of possible criminal charges that deserve due diligence. On Sunday, Times Union reported that the Albany County District Attorney’s office and the state Board of Elections are moving forward with an investigation. When asked a day later about the ongoing criminal investigation, Zeldin went quiet.
After months of non-answers and finger-pointing, and the potential of this scheme to result in legitimate criminal charges, New Yorkers deserve to know who exactly was involved in Lee Zeldin’s election fraud scandal.
This isn’t the first time Zeldin has faced allegations of fraud. During his 2016 and 2018 congressional runs, Lee Zeldin sent a campaign mailer that incorrectly listed the deadline to return absentee ballots. In 2020, Zeldin voted against the presidential election results and continues to push baseless conspiracy theories under the banner of “election integrity.”
As someone seeking the highest office in the state at a time when our democracy is under threat around the country, Lee Zeldin must be held accountable.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
- Libertarian Party Secretary Andrew Kolstee: “Republicans talk a lot about election integrity…but the Zeldin campaign attempted to fly under the radar and submit over 11,000 fraudulent signatures in an attempt to get a third line on the ballot […] The Zeldin campaign’s attempt to defraud the electorate and pose as an independent campaign by filing thousands of photocopied signatures is a slap in the face to New York State voters and the election process.”
- Election Law Expert and Former New York City Councilman Henry Berger: “This one is not complicated. This is simple, blatant fraud.”
- NYS Senator and Senate Elections Committee Member Shelley Mayer: “I’ve never seen anything of this magnitude… There are crimes here.”
- Election Law Expert and Attorney Sarah Steiner: “My reaction to it was, ‘wow’… Unless somebody accidentally mixed in pages that they had photocopied and then paginated them, in which case they would still be invalid, that’s a massive attempt at fraud […] That sounds like a deliberate attempt to pad the petition.”
- Former NY Governor David Paterson: “Zeldin… has refused to condemn what is a blatant violation of the public trust and our very democracy.”
- U.S. Congressman and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler: “Lee Zeldin pushed Trump’s big lie & now, it seems like he’s doing exactly what he baselessly accused Biden of: defrauding voters. Fortunately, he’s too incompetent to get away with it. NYers deserve a Governor with integrity like [Governor Hochul]—and Lee deserves an investigation.”
- Times Union Editorial Board: “Mr. Zeldin purports to be a stickler for the integrity of other elections but seems rather unconcerned about apparent violations that stand to benefit his own campaign. We would find the hypocrisy astonishing, if it weren’t so depressingly predictable.”
- Post-Journal Editorial Board: “[B]efore voters give their support to Zeldin, his campaign needs to come clean. This isn’t just about election gamesmanship. This is about trust…”
TIMELINE OF KEY EVENTS
- July 14: City & State reports that the New York State Board of Elections rejected Lee Zeldin’s petition to get on the Independence Party line, citing nearly 13,000 invalid signatures—about 11,000 of which were photocopied duplicates.
- July 28: The New York Times reports that Zeldin’s own campaign manager had signed off on all 47 volumes of petition signatures and that other paid senior campaign staffers had witnessed some of the photocopied pages, directly contradicting the campaign’s claims that the process had been “an entirely grass-roots effort.”
- August 4: NYS Senator Zellnor Myrie calls on Albany County DA David Soares to investigate why and how the photocopied duplicates appeared in the petitions, specifically mentioning Zeldin’s campaign manager and citing a number of possible criminal charges.
- August 15: Reporting from Times Union’s Chris Bragg confirms that the fraudulent signatures were ultimately assembled at the New York Republican headquarters before being submitted.
- August 15: Reporting from Newsday confirms that the Zeldin campaign paid the far-right extremist group Long Island Loud Majority to help gather their petitions.
- September 8: More reporting from Newsday highlights that nearly half of the photocopied documents came from Zeldin’s backyard in Suffolk County, with a significant number having been witnessed by top campaign staffers and the leader of another far-right group, the Setauket Patriots, which bussed people to the January 6 Capitol riots.
- September 18: The Albany County District Attorney’s office and the state Board of Elections announce they are moving forward with an investigation focusing on who took part in the photocopying effort and whether or not top GOP party officials were involved.