Last Tuesday, progressives swept three races in the New York primary, in an election that reverberated around the country. Progressives are understandably fired up. Mainstream Democrats and Conservatives reacted strongly with their concerns. We are not in favor of or against progressives. We are nonpartisan. We will be in court tomorrow regarding a Republican race. We are in favor of honest elections.
Most commentators attributed the wins to the influence of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and his support for three Democratic Socialist candidates who won.
We agree that explains much of what’s happening.
But there’s something else happening in the background of New York elections that we want you to be aware of: the SMART Elections fight against election corruption.
In the 13th Congressional District, where the biggest upset happened, challenger Darializa Avila Chevalier beat five-term incumbent Congressman Adriano Espaillat. In previous elections we had insiders tell us that Espaillat passed out bags of cash to get elected. In this recent June 2026 primary, we had observers on the ground and the candidates were also likely aware of a lawsuit that we filed in 2024 documenting gross irregularities in the election, and which we detail below. (A different lawsuit than the Rockland County, New York lawsuit.)
During these years, we have documented and started to understand the corruption in the election process here.
Section 6210.18 (c)(3)
(3) If any unresolved discrepancy is detected between the manual count described in this subdivision and the machine or system electronic count, even an unresolved discrepancy of a single vote, the manual count shall be conducted a second time on such machine or system to confirm the discrepancy.
Section 6210.18 (d)
(d) The reconciliation report required in subdivision (c) of this section shall be transmitted to the County Board commissioners or their designees upon completion of the initial phase of the audit for determination on the expansion of the audit conducted pursuant to subdivisions (e) through (g) of this section.
In one district in the 2023 audit there was a race that had a different count on every system.
In this district, Joanne Quinones received 31 votes on the Election Day scanners, 32 votes on the audit scanners, and 33 votes in the hand count. These discrepancies are representative. Because only a small fraction of the ballots are being audited, if there are discrepancies in some races, there could be more discrepancies and much larger discrepancies in other races. (In the 2025 audit, the board acknowledged hundreds of pages of discrepancies.)
Here are some of the discrepancies and irregularities from the 2023 Kings County (Brooklyn) audit.
This is not the Rockland County New York Lawsuit that you’ve probably heard about. We filed this lawsuit prior to the Rockland County suit.
Here is the first paragraph
New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - October 29, 2024) - SMART Elections and its Co-founder and Executive Director, Lulu Friesdat, are lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed Thursday, October 17th, against the New York City Board of Elections (NYCBOE).
The election included a highly competitive race for an open seat in the New York Assembly, representing Harlem and parts of the Upper West Side. These findings raise serious concerns about the legitimacy of the election and the certified results. The lawsuit calls for a new supervised special election.
2 judges recused themselves and another judge was never assigned. It’s possible that the Manhattan Democratic Chair, Keith Wright, had enough influence to prevent the lawsuit from moving forward. The election we were challenging was the election of his son, Jordan Wright, to the New York State Assembly.
In the recent June 23, 2026 primary that saw a progressive sweep, we had observers on the ground in this same area of New York City and we did not find as much evidence of foul play. There was one location in the 13th Congressional District with more ballots than voters in Early Voting, and one instance of illegal electioneering was reported to us. But most of our observer reports reconciled - meaning we found the same number of voters and ballots (or sometimes a few more voters than ballots, which can be explained by some voters leaving the location before casting a ballot.)
This is an image from one of our Data Collection Forms showing that the same number of voters checked in as cast ballots on Election Day.
As stated above - we had observers on the ground in the 13th Congressional District, and we believe this helped inhibit cheating, to the point that the challenger Darializa Avila Chevalier was able to win over a five-term incumbent Congressman.
In the race against Keith Wright’s son Jordon Wright, in this recent 2026 primary, Jordan Wright won again, but by a smaller margin. He beat his main opponent by 1,114 votes instead of 1,610. We did not have enough observers on the ground to completely assess the accuracy of the election, but will continue to monitor that district. We hope that you will consider getting involved wherever you are, because there are races like this all over the country that it would be advisable to watch closely.
As we said, our work is not the only reason that election results are changing. Brad Lander, for example, a candidate endorsed by Mayor Mamdani, has a huge following in New York. But events indicate that our work is having an impact.
Please Make a Tax-Deductible Donation
We are scaling up and teaching people how to do this type of observation all over the country. We hope to hire one, possibly two more people on staff to help process all the observation reports we are receiving and to do more outreach to other organizations. Each part-time staffer costs approximately $20,000. We also must raise legal fees, so that we can take action when we locate foul play. One lawsuit can cost $50,000 to $100,000.
Each $50 you donate provides the recruiting materials, training, software, mentoring, support & follow-up for one observer.
Anything that you can afford is greatly appreciated, and thank you for all that you do.
We appreciate you.
Think for yourself, or others will think for you without thinking of you.
~ Henry David Thoreau
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