By: Meyer Wolfsheim

A bombshell lawsuit is accusing election officials in the Democratic stronghold of Mount Vernon, New York, of allowing wildly inaccurate and suspicious voter rolls that include names of long-deceased residents – and even one person allegedly born in 1897, the New York Post reported.

The complaint, filed by City Council candidate Bill Schwartz, claims the number of registered voters in the small Westchester County city surged by more than 30% in just over a year – an explosion that overwhelmingly favored the local Democratic Party machine. Schwartz lost a recent Democratic primary and is now taking his concerns to court, demanding a full accounting and cleanup of the voter lists.

“This lawsuit is about more than just sloppy paperwork,” Schwartz told the New York Post. “When the voter rolls are that messy and nobody at the Board of Elections is responding, you have to ask – what else is being overlooked, or worse, pushed through on purpose?”

The legal action, filed July 15 in Westchester Supreme Court, names the county’s Board of Elections and both commissioners: Republican Doug Colety and Democrat Tajian Nelson. The latter, a Mount Vernon resident, also serves as the recording secretary for the city’s Democratic Committee, the New York Post noted.

Schwartz is calling on the court to intervene before the upcoming general election. “I want to ensure that every election going forward is fair, transparent, and conducted according to the law,” he said.

Mount Vernon, home to roughly 80,000 residents, has long been a deeply blue political enclave with outsized influence in Westchester County elections. Schwartz alleges that local Democratic power brokers – past and present – wield considerable control over the electoral process. According to him, the late Reginald LaFayette, a former Democratic leader and election commissioner, had entrenched influence that persists through his protégés, the New York Post reported.

Schwartz said a comparison of records from mid-2023 to June 2024 revealed more than 10,000 new voter ID numbers in just 13 months – a shocking increase in a city with approximately 41,000 total voters. Records from last year showed 34,386 registered voters. This year, the figure had jumped to 44,021, including more than 31,000 Democrats and just 2,800 Republicans, according to the lawsuit.

What disturbed Schwartz most, however, were clear red flags in the data. Among the current active voter listings is someone born in 1897 – and several other entries list birthdates from the 1920s. He says many of these so-called voters haven’t cast a ballot in over a decade, and some have had their party affiliation or addresses mysteriously altered. In multiple cases, the names belonged to people who had died years ago, including one who passed in 2002 and another who relocated to Virginia over a decade ago, the New York Post reported.

Despite raising these concerns with the Board of Elections, Schwartz said his warnings were brushed aside. “This is about integrity,” he insisted. “If voters are going to believe in the process, the rules have to apply to everyone – not just the politically connected.”

“I don’t believe that’s happening right now,” he added. “So I’m doing everything I can to change it.” New York Post reported.