Constituents of the grave

   NY Post

Mail-in ballots were submitted to the city Board of Elections in the name of at least two long-dead Democratic voters in southern Brooklyn — where a tight race is still going on, The Post has learned.

The legitimacy of absentee ballots has become an issue in the close City Council race in the area’s 43rd District, where Republican Brian Fox leads Democratic incumbent Justin Brannan by 255 votes, with at least 1,622 such ballots yet to be counted.

Fox’s shocking lead over Brannan — who has been campaigning to become the next powerful council speaker — appears to be part of the Republican election wave that swept out Democrats in parts of the region and nation.

The district includes the neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Bath Beach, Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst. 

Board of Elections records show that someone requested a ballot in the name of Francesca Patinella — a Democrat born in 1926 and who died March 24, 2010 — in September for November’s general election.

The city elections agency then wrote on its Absentee Ballot Tracker web portal Sept. 28, addressing the dead woman, “We have your ballot. Your valid absentee ballot was received at the BOE.”

Another mail-in ballot was submitted in the name of Yvonne Absey, who died March 2, 2012. Absey, who also was born in 1926, is recorded as requesting an absentee ballot in September, according to BOE records.

“We have received your ballot,” the BOE responded in Absey’s case Oct. 4.

A day later, the BOE declared that the Absey ballot was “invalid” because the voter was “deceased.”

Ready on the left

Queens Chronicle

Absentee counts are proving a repeat of the blue progressive wave of 2018.

As of Wednesday night, the absentee ballot count yielded several more victories for insurgent Democratic primary candidates for Assembly across western and southern Queens.

Progressive challengers Jenifer Rajkumar, Jessica González-Rojas and Zohran Mamdani each claimed victory over incumbents, based on unofficial counts. The outlier to the trend is senior Assemblymember Jeff Aubry (D-Corona), who was able to expand his lead over challenger Hiram Monserrate in the aftermath of election day.

The next step is for the Board of Elections to certify the results. The general election is Nov. 3.

Rajkumar, an Indian-American lawyer from Woodhaven, came out with 3,624 votes to Assemblyman Mike Miller’s (D-Woodhaven) 1,469 total.

Rajkumar’s apparent win in Assembly District 38, which stretches over Woodhaven, Ridgewood, Richmond Hill, Ozone Park and Glendale, would make her the first South Asian woman to be elected to the state Legislature. She noted that her campaign came out on top in every single election district, and that she won by the largest margin of any Assembly candidate in the election cycle.

“Our campaign had been able to achieve the near impossible by winning with a margin of 27 percentage points during a global pandemic. When the people of South Queens needed a leader, our office was the first to show up, setting up a 24/7 Coronavirus response team that operates in seven languages,” said Rajkumar. “As President John F. Kennedy once said: ‘The life of service is a constant test of your will.’”