Crooklyn Machine resorts to forgery to maintain control over Dem party

 

THE CITY

The Brooklyn Democratic Party submitted paperwork with at least two forged signatures to the city Board of Elections as part of a bid to knock fellow Democrats off June primary ballots, a grassroots political organization alleges.

On Thursday, Rep Your Block, a volunteer organization, lodged a complaint with the board, citing sworn affidavits from two registered Democrats in Brownsville and East New York who said the signatures on ballot challenges to candidates filed in their names weren’t theirs.

The “filing of these objections with your agency amounts to the criminal act of filing a false instrument,” the complaint to the BOE states. “These objections and any resulting specifications should be dismissed by your agency.”

Rep Your Block, which aims to get more residents to participate in the borough’s Democratic party, also communicated to THE CITY concerns about the validity of at least a half dozen other signatures submitted on formal objections to candidates’ ballot petitions filed with the board.

They point to a similarity in the handwriting among the signatures, obvious discrepancies between the submitted signatures and voter signatures already on file at the Board of Election, and even misspellings of some of the names.

“We just want to be a part of our own political party. It shouldn’t be that hard. And to have to go to a criminal end to block us is just shocking,” said Maggie Moore, campaign director for Rep Your Block. “It’s really, really unfortunate and disappointing.”

The flagged challenges were among dozens linked to the Brooklyn Democratic Party targeting the ballot petitions of nearly 200 candidates who are seeking party positions. 

 THE CITY

Reon Sealey, 21, writes his name in a hasty, hard-to-read scribble. So on Friday, when reporters from THE CITY visited his Brownsville, Brooklyn, apartment, he was surprised to see a document with a clear cursive signature purporting to be his — and misspelling his last name, without the second “e.”

The document is an official filing submitted to the city Board of Elections, aimed at knocking a Democratic candidate running for a low-level party position off the June primary ballot.

“This is not my signature, 100% it’s not,” said the young man, wearing a hoodie on a windy day outside his apartment building.

His upstairs neighbor, Osasogie Airhiavbere, told THE CITY she too didn’t sign that form, which showed a tidy version of her signature right beside Sealey’s.

“It’s definitely fraud, and it’s not good,” said Airhiavbere, a 38-year-old administrative staffer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The neighbors join two other registered voters in Brownsville and East New York who swore in affidavits last week that their signatures were forged on similar election-related documents, THE CITY previously reported.

All four of the residents’ contested signatures appear on ballot objection forms that list a top attorney for the Brooklyn Democratic Party as the point of contact.

The two affidavits alleging fraud formed the basis of an official complaint filed with the New York City Board of Elections last week by Rep Your Block, a volunteer organization that helps Brooklyn residents run for county committee seats.

Frank Seddio resigns from chairing Brooklyn Democratic Party

Gothamist


After nearly eight years as head of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, Frank Seddio has stepped down. "Good riddance to Brooklyn’s dirty, undemocratic Democratic boss," the Daily News editorial board proclaimed on hearing the news of Seddio's retirement.

Seddio was criticized during his tenure for perpetuating Kings county's powerful political machine, which is responsible for endorsing judicial candidates, choosing nominees during primary elections and setting party rules. So-called proxy voting plagued how meetings operated when they were held, and reformer club New Kings Democrats perpetually pushed Seddio to make the party operations more transparent.

"Let me just say that if I were any more transparent, I would be arrested for lewdness," Seddio told Gothamist in a phone interview on Monday. "I don't know what else to do. Should I take off my underwear and let them see the rest of my body?"

Despite how disgusting that would look, yes.

Maybe getting frogmarched out of his house in his britches by the feds might be in the future regarding his embezzlement case in New Jersey and where the money went from his debt in chicken restaurants in Kentucky.