{"id":231125,"date":"2026-05-14T09:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/231125\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T09:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:28:07","slug":"brooklyn-dems-are-stealing-your-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/231125\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn Dems are stealing your vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act<\/a>, New Yorkers have watched as red states strip voters of fair representation. But look at Brooklyn to find voter suppression.<\/p>\n

In March, your neighbors likely asked you to sign petitions to put candidates on the primary ballot.\u00a0The Brooklyn Democratic Party is attempting to silence its own voters who signed these petitions.<\/p>\n

I was one of those people collecting signatures; as a volunteer for Bed-Stuy district leader candidates and Stop Deed Theft<\/a> advocates Carmella Charrington and Omar Hardy. District leaders<\/a> make up the Brooklyn Democratic Party\u2019s obscure but powerful governing body that largely controls selecting judges, party priorities, and spending.<\/p>\n

Carmella and Omar needed 500 signatures. They collected more than 1,300. But they\u2019re running against Kenesha Traynham-Cooper and Henry Butler, incumbents and allies of the current party leader.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So the party challenged every signature, claiming they didn\u2019t match the records. The goal was simple: knock them off the ballot and deny Bed-Stuy voters a real choice in June, no matter the legal costs or the time wasted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I joined volunteers to defend these signatures. What I witnessed was an arbitrary process that threatens ballot access for more than a million Brooklyn Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over days, referees compared petition signatures against photocopies \u2014 generally years-old signatures from when voters first registered. If two signatures didn\u2019t look identical at a glance, the signature was disqualified. Referees rarely do this work, receive no formal training, and know the exercise is as much guesswork as judgment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I watched referees strike a 79-year-old\u2019s signature because it didn\u2019t match from 1986. My own signature was challenged. Because I collected signatures, invalidating mine would have thrown out every petition I gathered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was eventually called to testify in court. While her colleagues were in Albany negotiating the budget, Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn<\/a> and the party\u2019s lawyer grilled me about my handwriting and how I gathered signatures. I had done nothing wrong, but I had to prove it in court to protect the voices of my neighbors.<\/p>\n

Anyone who signed their name on a clipboard already knows the flaws. Signatures change and shift over years. The party knows this, too, which is why they\u2019ve weaponized it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If the party bosses can wield these rules against anyone who challenges their power, then voters do not have fair ballot access.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This misuse of party resources matters. In 2022, Republicans won three seats in the Legislature after the Brooklyn Dems did almost no campaign work<\/a>. In 2024, the Democratic presidential candidate received 150,000 fewer<\/a> votes in Brooklyn than in 2020. Last August, party leaders traded votes<\/a> to endorse judges based on relationships over merit.<\/p>\n

Carmella and Omar made it onto the ballot<\/a>, but only because of extraordinary effort and after hundreds of signatures were tossed. Volunteers crisscrossed Bed-Stuy tracking down voters whose signatures had been disqualified and asked them to sign an affidavit confirming they signed the original petition. That this was necessary tells you everything about how the machine spends its time, and yours.<\/p>\n

Conservatives who fought against the Voting Rights Act claim that elections are stolen by fake signatures, fake registrations, and fake people. Those claims are bogus. The real manipulation of who gets a vote is in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

This June, the Brooklyn Can\u2019t Wait slate of reform-minded candidates<\/a> is running to build a transparent, accountable, and inclusive party. You can vote for them, something the machine spent weeks and thousands of dollars trying to make sure you couldn\u2019t do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Davis is a member of the Kings County Democratic County Committee.<\/p>\n

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