A Democratic candidate from Brooklyn, Marie Mirville-Shahzada, is facing the potential removal from the primary ballot after an unsettling discovery was made regarding her nominating petitions. It has come to light that the signatures of two deceased individuals were included in her submissions, raising serious concerns about the validity of her candidacy, according to revelations by The Post.
Mirville-Shahzada, who is running for the State Assembly, and her team of Democratic district leaders may find themselves ousted from the Coney Island primaries. The city Board of Elections has invalidated an astonishing 90% of her 5,258 collected signatures. This startling percentage is primarily due to the fact that around 3,000 of these signatories either resided outside the district or were not registered voters, casting a shadow over the legitimacy of the petition.
In investigating the authenticity of these signatures, The Post confirmed that at least two belonged to individuals who have passed away. Additionally, a third signature reportedly came from a woman whose relatives assert she was not even in New York City on the date she was alleged to have signed.
The petitions reveal that these deceased voters would be over a century old today, having died more than ten years ago. Despite this, new signatures appeared last month, purportedly backing Mirville-Shahzada’s candidacy for the party primary.
Adding to the controversy, the family of 99-year-old Lucia Gelbfish has stated she did not sign the petition, expressing concern that the fraudulent use of her name would severely upset her, given her precarious health condition.
And 99-year-old Lucia Gelbfish’s family said she didn’t sign the petition either and that her “blood pressure would go through the roof” if she knew her signature had been used fraudulently.
“I was a little incensed only because years ago you didn’t hear things like this. This is our democracy nowadays. It’s very sad,” her daughter, Sharon Gelbfish, told The Post.
Attempts to reach relatives of the deceased voters were unsuccessful but social security records noted they both passed in 2010.
Mirville-Shahzada now has a meager 479 valid signatures which is 21 short of the 500 threshold to run for Assembly against fellow Democrat Chris McCreight, the chief-of-staff to the former lefty leaning City Councilman Justin Brannan.
“This is why people lose faith in government, because you have people running for office who are willing to lie and cheat because they can’t compete by following the rules,” McCreight said in a statement.
“It’s dead wrong and should not be tolerated when anybody, of any party, does it.”
Now, 34 of Mirville-Shahzada’s 479 signatures will also be examined by the Kings County Supreme Court to determine whether there any are forgeries.
Mirville-Shahzada denied that her staff “would have done anything” as they “knocked on every door” and that she would give an “official comment” later but did not respond to any follow up request for comment.
Sources told The Post she has filed paperwork to challenge in court the BOE’s decision to eliminate the signatures.
“We see signatures get invalidated in races on a regular basis but the fact that 90% of them have been invalidated is just a stunningly high number,” said Grace Rauh, executive director of good government group Citizens Union.
“This certainly strikes me as a case that merits additional investigation and some real scrutiny to see what was going on here. It’s bewildering because it’s so vast,” Rauh told The Post.
Alex Camarda, senior policy adviser for government watchdog group Reinvent Albany, said that a wider investigation should be launched.
“When you look a this collectively with all of these improprieties together, it certainly raises a lot of questions and should be investigated by the Board of Elections,” he told The Post.
A BOE spokesperson said that the board does not independently conduct investigations into fraudulent claims but did not comment on whether any potential investigation would be referred to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.
Shahzada has been an outspoken supporter of the controversial $3 billion Coney Island Casino proposal, which the former councilman voted against.
The district, which stretches from Coney Island to Bay Ridge, is currently repped by Republican Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny — who did not face any challenges for the GOP nomination.
Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio and registered independents outnumber the roughly 19,000 registered Republicans in the 85,000 registered voters in the district.
The Democratic primary will occur on June 23 and the November general election will be held on Nov. 3.
