NYC Congress Candidates Clash On 'Voter Suppression' Claim

NEW YORK, NY — Two congressional candidates locked in New York City's tightest Democratic primary sparred this weekend over claims of possible voter suppression as thousands of absentee ballots are being counted by the city Board of Elections.

Challenger Suraj Patel appeared on MSNBC Saturday to accuse longtime incumbent Carolyn Maloney of preparing to challenge the results of absentee ballots as they are counted. Patel finished 648 votes, just less than 2 percent of the total vote, behind Maloney when election-day votes were counted Tuesday.

"Voter suppression is a real thing. And it’s not just real in Republican states. It’s also real in the Democratic Party," Patel said on MSNBC's "Weekends with Alex Witt." The appearance was Patel's first interview on a major cable network, according to the candidate's social media feed.

Patel, 36, worries that younger residents voting by absentee ballot for the first time may have made mistakes filling out the forms, which would rule out more votes for him than it would for the 74-year-old Maloney if the ballots are challenged.

Maloney took issue with her challenger's accusation and issued a statement likening them to something that would come from President Donald Trump.

"Today, one of my opponents made an outrageous and baseless accusation of voter suppression before a single absentee ballot has even been counted. This accusation calls into question both my integrity as an elected official, and the integrity of our electoral system, and comes straight out of Donald Trump's playbook," Maloney said in a statement.

More than 30,000 absentee ballots were collected from New York's 12th Congressional District, which spans much of the east side of Manhattan, the Queens neighborhood of Astoria and Brooklyn's Greenpoint. The vast majority of those ballots were collected in Manhattan, turf that was friendlier to Maloney in the 2018 race between her and Patel.

Of the absentee ballots collected: 22872 were received from Manhattan, 1295 were received from Brooklyn and 6371 were received from Queens.

The 2020 Democratic primary for NY-12 was a four-candidate race. Lauren Ashcraft finished in third place on election night with just over 13 percent of the vote and Peter Harrison finished in fourth with about 4 percent of the vote, according to the city Board of Elections' unofficial results.