Top GOP figures charged in ballot fraud case out of New York

Three New York county officials linked to the local GOP were indicted last week on charges related to ballot fraud, WAMC reported.

Richard Crist, James Gordon, and Leslie Wallace, all Rensselaer County officials, were arrested and charged Thursday with conspiring to violate the rights of county voters during the 2021 election cycle. The alleged plot apparently exploited relaxed absentee ballot requirements that were in place during the pandemic.

Rensselaer's former Democratic Mayor Rich Mooney said that "during the campaign of 2021, myself, my team, noticed some irregularities with absentee ballots."

"During the recount of the election of 2021 we challenged up to 60 ballots that we thought were tainted and not legitimate ballots. Well, along with that, we had an individual come forward, who told us that he did not request an absentee ballot and one was released to a Republican operative in his name and had voted for him," Mooney said. "That individual had the courage to sign an affidavit. And we took that to the state police. And that is what started the ballot fraud investigation in the city of Rensselaer and Rensselaer County.”

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Current Republican Mayor Mike Stammel said that Mooney should be "careful" when commenting on the case.

“Mr. Mooney is just an individual here in city politics, who has never won an election when he ran against any candidate," said Stammel. "He's only won one election as a councilman or council president where nobody ran against him. And furthermore, I find that Mr. Mooney, that when he was mayor, should be careful about some of the things he says and does, because when his time in office, he's also been under investigation for the acts of his administration for utilizing fraud from what I understand it to be, with action taken in the planning department, and having hired people to do duties for the city that really wasn't for the city. It was really for his own political campaign.”

Read the full report over at WAMC.