Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Jimmy K. Meng was declared the
winner of a contested primary.
Posted on 09/29/2004 6:32:37 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Jimmy K. Meng was declared the
winner of a contested primary.
A review of voter registration records shows that a pattern of suspicious registrations in an Assembly district in Queens extends back to the 2002 election, when almost 100 new voters gave home addresses that turned out to be businesses like restaurants, hair salons and a plumbing supply store.
That early surge was followed by hundreds more questionable registrations this year, creating a wave of suspect voters that has cast a shadow over the upset victory by Jimmy K. Meng, a Flushing businessman who defeated Assemblyman Barry S. Grodenchik by about 600 votes in the Sept. 14 Democratic primary.
The shadow was partly lifted yesterday when the New York City Board of Elections certified Mr. Meng as the winner after concluding that the number of contested voters could not have changed the outcome of the election. The board, however, said it was continuing its review of the registrations and may turn the matter over to prosecutors.
It is a felony to "knowingly give a false residence within the election district" when registering to vote, or to help someone do so.
Because almost all of the voters have Asian names, and some gave addresses at or near businesses owned by Mr. Meng, suspicion within the Grodenchik camp has focused on the Meng campaign, which says it did not fraudulently register anyone. Mr. Meng first ran, unsuccessfully, for the Democratic nomination in 2002, and he actively sought to register new voters in the run-up to this month's primary in his bid to become the first Asian-American in the State Legislature.
Several people who live outside the district but registered to vote using their Flushing business addresses said yesterday that they voted for Mr. Meng in 2002, but decided not to vote this year after learning that it would be illegal to do so.
Yu Ling Hu, a co-owner of the Flushing Grand Hotel on Main Street, said yesterday that he and his wife registered to vote for the 2002 primary using his hotel as their home address, even though they live on Long Island. Mr. Hu, 48, said campaign workers came to his hotel and "told me that if you have a business here in Flushing you can get a vote in."
He said he could not remember which campaign they represented, but that he voted for Mr. Meng.
Across the street from the hotel at the King Hua Restaurant, the owner, Philip Yuen, said he voted for Mr. Meng in 2002 after listing his restaurant as his home address on voter registration forms, even though he lives in Astoria. He said he decided not to vote this year after investigators visited him a few days before the election and asked questions about his registration.
Gary Tilzer, a spokesman for Mr. Meng's campaign, said he had not asked to see the entire list of voters that the elections board is reviewing, but that a partial list he examined contained some voters who were registered in the 1990's or earlier, long before Mr. Meng ran for office. Asked about the more recent registrations, including at least five voters who listed Mr. Meng's bookstore as their home address when filling out forms earlier this year, Mr. Tilzer said Mr. Meng had no knowledge of them.
"He doesn't know who these people are," he said.
In an interview on Sunday, Mr. Grodenchik called the suspicious voter registrations "a crime wave," but he stopped short of directly blaming Mr. Meng. Yesterday, Mr. Grodenchik's campaign manager, Mike Oliva, said circumstantial evidence pointed to the Meng campaign.
"The fact that 10 voters are registered in his bookstore, the fact there are so many illegal registrations that are so close to his lumberyard, I think means that there are connections there that need to be looked into," Mr. Oliva said.
In 2002, slightly more than half the voters who listed suspicious addresses voted in either the primary or general election, according to records compiled by the Grodenchik campaign. This year, it is unclear how many of the roughly 400 voters under review by the elections board voted on Sept. 14, although the board's executive director, John Ravitz, said an initial canvassing of about half the names found that "only a handful" actually went to the polls.
Mr. Ravitz said his review began with a complaint, lodged before the primary, that 191 voters had given fraudulent addresses in the district and that many of them may have been deterred from going to the polls because of questions raised by inspectors. The list doubled last week after more complaints came in, and the inquiry is continuing, he said.
"I sent people out to the initial 191 addresses, and all of them were commercial addresses," he said. "We want to know why so many people gave commercial addresses."
Patrick Clark, a spokesman for Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney, said Mr. Brown is awaiting the outcome of the elections board's review before deciding whether to launch a criminal investigation.
Well, at least they weren't dead yet--that's traditionally where the demonrats get most of their support.
Democrat vote fraud? Like I'm surprised. Tell us something we don't know.
Happens here on Long Island too *lol*
This man may learn the hard way that not all minority Dimocrats are permitted to commit vote fraud...
my question is "WHAT IS BEING DONE ABOUT THIS???" *sorry for yelling here*
The Dems have Jimmy "Why am I here?" Carter out setting up charges of disenfranchisement that the Dems will pull out when they lose, where are our pundits out talking about vite fraud, the Dems paying felons to sign people up to vote, no checks on identity, etc?
Let us not forget that all the problems in FL 2000 were in democrat precincts.
This guy is NOT a brain surgeon...
Well, the fact that the NY Times reported this today is a step in the right direction. And no problem yelling about this: IT DESERVES TO BE SHOUTED ABOUT.
I remember listening to WABC last election and some guy calling in saying he voted 4 times on the same day.
For those who don't know the area, Flushing on Main Street (last stop on the subway, also a stop on the LIRR) has become a real Little Asia over the last twenty years. You could be in Shanghai or Taipei as you walk down some of the side streets. Area used to be really run down, has revived with the Asian influx, who give the area life. It seems like a safe neighborhood, too. Naturally, there are tensions between the old guard and the newcomers. This vote fraud should not reflect poorly on the community in general, though it undoubtedly will be taken that way.
Yep--the Number 7 train that goes there is called "The Orient Express."
Dare I say that the NY Times is being ethno-centric, nay, even racist, by suggesting that Asians would tend to vote for an Asian candidate. The NY Times reporters who wrote this story need to turn themselves into Pinch for re-education at the nearest color-blind camp for politically correct journalists.
Good to see these hard working immigrants have respect for the tenets of democracy.
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