XPost: alt.politics.elections, talk.politics.guns, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   XPost: sac.politics   
   From: drooler@gmail.com   
      
   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.   
      
   These are entry-level party positions, about 4,000 across the borough for   
   two-year terms that start in September, that are unpaid but pivotal in   
   selecting Democratic nominees for special elections and voting on rules   
   that impact the party’s finances, transparency and powers.   
      
   Rep Your Block said the allegedly fraudulent paperwork is part of a larger   
   bid by Brooklyn’s Democratic party — under chair Rodneyse Bichotte   
   Hermelyn, a state Assembly member — to consolidate power, including by   
   preemptively knocking off committee member candidates who aren’t aligned   
   with party leadership.   
      
   All six of the Rep Your Block-assisted candidates for county committee in   
   the 55th Assembly District had their petitions challenged, while none of   
   the 159 party-aligned candidates did, Board of Elections records show.   
      
   Party officials are also trying to take out dissident district leaders,   
   who are mid-level party officials, by running County-backed Democrats   
   against them — a rarity in past years. In another maneuver against   
   challenges to her power, last year Bichotte Hermelyn declined to recertify   
   the party’s growingly progressive youth arm.   
      
   In response to the fraud allegations, Brooklyn Assemblymember Maritza   
   Davila, who has feuded with the party’s county leadership in recent years,   
   demanded the Brooklyn Democratic Party drop “its challenges” to rival   
   candidates’ ballot petitions in light of what she called “potential   
   criminal actions.”   
      
   “The actions of the Kings County Democratic Party leadership are a blatant   
   attempt at intimidating everyday Brooklynites — including senior citizens   
   — who want to represent their communities,” Davila tweeted on Friday. “It   
   comes as no shock they are stooping to such tactics to hold on to power.”   
      
   ‘Should Be Dismissed’   
      
   In its complaint to the Board of Elections, Rep Your Block called on the   
   board to throw out the allegedly fraudulent forms and dozens of other   
   signature objection forms targeting county committee, district leader and   
   other candidates that listed Anthony Genovesi Jr., the Democratic party’s   
   law chair, as the point of contact.   
      
   Genovesi works at Abrams Fensterman, a large Brooklyn law firm that’s   
   close to Mayor Eric Adams and where Adams’ current chief of staff, Frank   
   Carone, was a partner for years.   
      
   The “filing of these objections with your agency amounts to the criminal   
   act of filing a false instrument,” the group asserted in the complaint.   
   “These objections and any resulting specifications should be dismissed by   
   your agency.”   
      
   Genovesi didn’t respond to a request for comment on Monday.   
      
   Bob Liff, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn Democrats, said the allegedly   
   fraudulent objections were not filed by the party. In a subsequent   
   statement, he attributed the objections to the actions of individual   
   candidates, but did not explain how the party’s top lawyer ended up on   
   their objection forms as a designated point of contact.   
      
   “The contact person is not the objector, is not the filer and is not   
   someone who vets the objections,” he said. “The proper venue for   
   addressing these questions is the Board of Elections.”   
      
   Henry Butler, district leader for the 56th Assembly District 56th AD, and   
   vice-chair of the Kings County Democratic Executive Committee, sent a   
   statement to THE CITY asserting that it’s Rep Your Block that’s in the   
   wrong.   
      
   “They submitted many signatures that did not meet the requirements, and   
   subsequently also filed objections to candidates who did do the hard   
   grassroots work. Rep your Block wants to get on the ballot by not   
   following the rules,” he stated.   
      
   Board of Elections officials did not respond to requests for comment.   
      
   Borough Hall Protest   
   THE CITY’s coverage of the fraud allegations on Friday sparked immediate   
   reaction from elected officials and progressive activists who are planning   
   a protest Monday evening on the steps of Brooklyn’s Borough Hall.   
      
   Rita Joseph, a former teacher who recently beat Bichotte Hermelyn’s   
   preferred choice for the Flatbush City Council seat, took issue with the   
   Democratic party’s conduct.   
      
   “If the actions alleged in the article are true, then fraud is being   
   committed,” she tweeted.   
      
   Over the weekend, Ali Najmi, an election lawyer for Rep Your Block,   
   received five bundles of certified mail from Abrams Fensterman, the firm   
   with close ties to Mayor Adams, as part of the ongoing legal process to   
   formally challenge the signatures of a host of primary candidates. Najmi   
   alleges that several of the documents, which again list Anthony Genovesi   
   Jr. as a contact person, contain further proof of forgery.   
      
   The mail included dozens of new “objection specifications,” a second, more   
   detailed ballot challenge in which individual objectors spell out the   
   alleged errors in candidates’ balloting petitions that they flagged in   
   their original objection.   
      
   One of the objection specification forms again includes signatures that   
   purport to be those of Sealey and Airhiavbere, the two Brownsville   
   residents who told THE CITY they had never signed any such forms.   
      
   In them, someone, using the names of Sealy and Airhiavbere, challenged   
   eight of the 17 signatures gathered by John J. Joyner, Jr., a Brownsville   
   county committee candidate who is trying to get on the ballot with the   
   help of Rep Your Block.   
      
      
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