NYC Election Commissioner Says Voter Fraud Prevalent on Undercover Video

NEW YORK, NY — A new undercover video surfaced on Tuesday courtesy of activist James O'Keefe's conservative Project Veritas site showing New York City Commissioner of the Board of Elections Alan Schulkin, a Democrat, complaining about voter fraud and the city's ID NYC program. But the city slammed the recording on Wednesday, calling it "careless and misinformed."

The video was shot last December at a United Federation of Teachers holiday party by a woman using a hidden camera. Schulkin did not know he was being recorded during the conversation. Many of O'Keefe's undercover recordings in the past have proven to be heavily edited.

Schulkin speaks on a few topics in the four-minute long video, largely focusing on fraudulent voting, busing people to polls and the city's ID NYC program.

The video opens with Schulkin declaring, "I think there's a lot of voter fraud."

Schulkin also says Democratic politicians bus people "from poll site to poll site." Polling locations cannot ask for ID when people go to the polls, according to the law. He also is critical of absentee ballots, saying "thousands" of ballots come in and "I don't know where they came from."

Schulkin changes the focus to the city's municipal ID program, ID NYC, and is critical of it being given out to anyone.

"He gave out ID cards, de Blasio. They don't ... that's in lieu of a driver's license, but you can use it for anything," Schulkin says in the video. "But they didn't vet the people to see who they really are. Anybody can go in there and say, 'I am Joe Smith, I want an ID card.' It's absurd. There is a lot of fraud, not just voter fraud, all kinds of fraud."

The mayor's office repudiated Schulkin's claim on Wednesday morning.

"There is absolutely no evidence that IDNYC is being used by fraudsters to game the voting system or any other systems, and accusations to the contrary are careless and misinformed," the mayor's assistant press secretary Rosemary Boeglin told Patch in a statement. "IDNYC utilizes a strict protocol, and all applications go through authentication and investigation by trained fraud-prevention experts. Two years and more than 900,000 cardholders later, we have detected only a very small number of cases of suspected fraud and we have successfully identified and prevented any wrongdoing in those instances."

The city also said the program was developed with a wide range of security and fraud prevention measures. According to the city, as of the end of September, there were just 92 cases of suspected fraud out of the nearly 1 million applications. Also, Schulkin's claims that anyone can walk in and get an ID are not true, according to the city. The city does require documents proving the applicant's identity, including one with a photo and date of birth, and proof of city residency.

Schulkin says in the video he doesn't agree with many Democratic policies and quips "This is why I'm getting more conservative as I get older" and responds "Sometimes I'm not" to a question about whether he's really a Democrat.

O'Keefe first garnered public attention for undercover filming at ACORN offices in 2009 in which workers for the non-profit appeared to discuss how to get away with tax evasion and human trafficking. The California Attorney General later called the tapes "severely edited" and the government found no wrongdoing by ACORN in spending federal funds. O'Keefe again gained attention for releasing undercover recordings in 2011 with NPR's vice president for fundraising. When the full recordings were analyzed against the edited ones, they were called "an elaborate, alluring lie" by the Washington Post.

A message with the Board of Elections was not returned.

Photo Credit: YouTube