A bitter ballot fight in a Queens Democratic primary is set to move to court Thursday as incumbent Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar faces a court challenge alleging forged signatures were used to secure her place on the June ballot.  Source © amNY .

A Board of Elections clerks’ review found that Rajkumar submitted 2,558 signatures for the Democratic primary in the 38th Assembly District and retained 1,494 valid signatures after 1,064 were invalidated on ordinary election-law grounds. The threshold for ballot access is 500 signatures.

But the same clerks’ report also said 1,168 forgery objections were “not ruled upon for lack of jurisdiction,” leaving the central fraud claims unresolved as the dispute heads before a judge.

The court challenge came from Rajkumar’s challenger, David Orkin, a member of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, who is seeking to invalidate her designating petition and block her name from appearing on the Democratic primary ballot.

Orkin’s petition alleges that Rajkumar’s filing was invalid for multiple reasons, including insufficient valid signatures, altered dates and witness statements, unregistered or out-of-district signers, and what they describe as multiple forged signatures.

The petition identifies nine specific signatures that it says were forged and argues that the problem extended well beyond those examples. It names seven subscribing witnesses and alleges that fraud permeated the petition pages they handled, which the filing claims account for more than 70% of the submitted signatures.

A Queens Supreme Court judge signed an order to show cause on April 17, allowing the case to proceed on an expedited basis. The order directed the Board of Elections to make related records available and expressly allowed petitioners to submit additional evidence on fraud, forgery, candidate ineligibility, and other alleged illegality.

A bitter ballot fight in a Queens Democratic primary is set to move to court Thursday as incumbent Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar faces a court challenge alleging forged signatures were used to secure her place on the June ballot.

A Board of Elections clerks’ review found that Rajkumar submitted 2,558 signatures for the Democratic primary in the 38th Assembly District and retained 1,494 valid signatures after 1,064 were invalidated on ordinary election-law grounds. The threshold for ballot access is 500 signatures.

But the same clerks’ report also said 1,168 forgery objections were “not ruled upon for lack of jurisdiction,” leaving the central fraud claims unresolved as the dispute heads before a judge.

The court challenge came from Rajkumar’s challenger, David Orkin, a member of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, who is seeking to invalidate her designating petition and block her name from appearing on the Democratic primary ballot.

Orkin’s petition alleges that Rajkumar’s filing was invalid for multiple reasons, including insufficient valid signatures, altered dates and witness statements, unregistered or out-of-district signers, and what they describe as multiple forged signatures.

The petition identifies nine specific signatures that it says were forged and argues that the problem extended well beyond those examples. It names seven subscribing witnesses and alleges that fraud permeated the petition pages they handled, which the filing claims account for more than 70% of the submitted signatures.

A Queens Supreme Court judge signed an order to show cause on April 17, allowing the case to proceed on an expedited basis. The order directed the Board of Elections to make related records available and expressly allowed petitioners to submit additional evidence on fraud, forgery, candidate ineligibility, and other alleged illegality.

Later, speaking to amNewYork, Rajkumar, a former civil rights lawyer, said she was confident about fending off Orkin’s challenge in the courtroom and the ballot box, saying, “My record speaks for itself, and I live for this job.”