One Reason Challengers Are Winning In NY

You won't hear about this anywhere else

What Caused The Progressive Tsunami in the New York Primary?

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.)

We believe our observations, our data collection & our legal actions contributed to the elections being more fair this year - and are one reason that three challengers were able to win.

SMART Elections Has Been Doing Election Observation in New York Since 2021

During these years, we have documented and started to understand the corruption in the election process here.

In 2021, the primary race that gave Eric Adams the nomination to become New York’s mayor, we found a polling location with 698 more ballots than voters who voted.

In 2023 we documented that many aspects of the audit in Kings County (Brooklyn) are not being done correctly.

New York regulations require that if a race that is audited is off by even one, the discrepancy is to be noted and reported to the commissioners for possible escalation.

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.

In June 2024, We Observed A Race With Gross Irregularities and Filed a Lawsuit

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 press release.

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 legal action depicts gross irregularities in the handling of voting equipment and ballots, reports of bribery, a lack of notification to some voters, and rampant illegal electioneering in the June 2024 New York Democratic Primary Election in Assembly District 70.

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.

We documented more ballots cast than voters who voted.

We documented evidence that poll workers accepted cash bribes in order to influence voters.

We documented a lack of seals and seal logs, to the point where the chain of custody of the ballots was meaningless.

We documented an overall accumulation of coincidences that strain believability.

The 2024 NYC Lawsuit Has Never Been Resolved

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.

The Power of Observation

While we were unable to get a resolution in the 2024 election, we believe that our work has been impactful.

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.

When candidates know they are being observed, and that those watching are documenting the evidence and willing to go to court, it can have an effect on how much they are willing to risk, and whether they feel comfortable cheating.

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.

Next Up:

We will be in court Wednesday in connection with a race from the same June 23rd 2026 New York primary that could have issues. Stay tuned for our report on that, the 2025 election that had hundreds of pages of discrepancies, and other irregularities in the 2026 election that just took place.

If you think this work is valuable please make sure to start a paid subscription to our Substack and support us with a tax-deductible donation.

Please Donate & Subscribe

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.

We will be observing in at least 25 close Congressional and Senate races in November and are working to raise $500,000 to do that. We’ve raised approximately $90,000 so far.

Each $50 you donate provides the recruiting materials, training, software, mentoring, support & follow-up for one observer.

Please go to SMARTelections.us, or use the QR code below, and make a donation.

Thank you to the generous supporters who have helped us get off to a great start in our midterm fundraising!

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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