On May 22, a New York State Supreme Court in Rockland County said that the lawsuit Smart Elections v Rockland County Board of Elections may proceed to a trial. The lawsuit alleges that the Rockland County official returns for the November 2024 election are incorrect. As evidence, the plaintiffs presented affidavits from voters who said that they had voted for U.S. Senate independent candidate Diane Sare. There are nine such affidavits in Assembly District 39, but the official returns show that Sare only received five votes. In Assembly District 62, there are five affidavits, but the official returns only show three votes. See this story.
Diane Sare was listed on the ballot as the candidate of the LaRouche Party. Remember that in New York petitioning candidates are permitted to designate their “party”. She was not an independent candidate.
The story mentions a statistical analysis by someone at Alabama-Huntsville that thought it was unusual that Kirsten Gillibrand would receive more votes than Kamala Harris, who was about as well known as William Miller, while Gillibrand has been Senator from New York for 15 years.
Trump ran well ahead of the Republican senate candidate Mike Sapraicone. Trump used to live in New York, and exudes New York-ness. The New York GOP worked to keep Cara Castronuova off the Republican primary ballot. Castronouva might have appealed to Trumpist voters who don’t necessarily identify as “Republican” and would not vote for Sapraicone if they were aware of the effort to keep Castronuova off the ballot.
Further the analysis compared President-“down ballot races” in 2024 to President-“down ballot races” in 2020. But there was no Senate race in 2020. So was he looking at the local House race?
Sare apparently collected the affidavits herself. Did the voters really remember who they voted for?
The LaRouche movement since 1979 has operated inside the Democratic Party, generally. LaRouche dissolved his U.S. Labor Party in 1979. So when a LaRouche supporter does run for public office outside the two major parties, it is always as an independent. There is no such organization as the “LaRouche Party.” Sare is an independent candidate using the ballot label “LaRouche”, but she is not part of any party named the LaRouche Party.
Rockland County has some areas that are populated totally by Hasidic Jews. They voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
One electoral district voted Trump 552 – Harris 0. But it also voted Gillibrand 331 Sapraicone 82. There were
331 Trump-Gillibrand voters
83 Trump-Sapraicone voters
139 Trump-blank voters.
Elsewhere in New York in more “conventional” areas, 10%-20% of Trump voters did not vote for the Republican senate candidate. Half or so switched over to Gillibrand, and half skipped the senate race.
This is really quite understandable. Trump’s appeal is that he is not a Chamber-of-Commerce Republican. His style may be particularly appealing to New Yorkers. Meanwhile the GOP establishment blocked a Trump-supporting candidate from getting on the GOP Senate ballot. BAN blogged about this back in 2024.
Diane Sane is president of the LaRouche Organization. Is that organization apolitical?