Rep. Mike Lawler alleges primary petition fraud in hotly contested N.Y.-17 race. Here's what he claims.
There are a little less than 200 days until the November election, but the contest for a Hudson Valley House seat is already intense.
Republican Mike Lawler, the incumbent in the 17th Congressional District, which represents all of Rockland and Putnam counties and most of northern Westchester County and southern Dutchess County, is asking a judge to kick a Democrat off the ballot, due to alleged fraud.
What Lawler is alleging
Joann Stach said she was shocked to learn her name was on a primary petition filed by Effie Phillips-Staley, one of five Democrats running in the June primary for the right to challenge Lawler in the general election.
"[I'm] very unnerved by the fact someone can just put my name down. I didn't even know her name," said Stach, adding when asked if she signed Phillips-Staley's petition, "No sir, I did not."
Stach went on to say the signature on the petition looks nothing like hers.
In a Rockland County courtroom on Wednesday, the Lawler campaign told Judge David Fried that petitions filed by the Phillips-Staley campaign are "permeated with fraud" in the form of hundreds of invalid signatures.
"When we talk about protecting democracy, when we talk about election integrity, knowingly filing false and fraudulent signatures, to me, is disqualifying," Lawler told CBS News New York's Tony Aiello.
Virtually all political petitions have some number of invalid signatures, but Lawler is arguing that Phillips-Staley filed so many bad ones, it amounts to pervasive fraud.
The judge will consider testimony from petition workers paid by a company called Bartholomew Strategies before making a decision.
Phillips-Staley calls Lawler "desperate"
Phillips-Staley dismissed the effort to knock her off the ballot, writing on social media, "This is how desperate he is."
Her campaign argues it filed more than enough valid signatures to qualify.
"Mike Lawler is arguing that we committed some sort of wholesale fraud and it's just patently false. It never happened. Burden is on him to prove it," spokesperson John Tomlin said.
