Long Island politicians are calling on state election officials to investigate how 12 families in Nassau and Suffolk received letters from two state senators thanking them for registering their deceased relatives to vote in the upcoming election.
The letters were sent by the offices of Republican state senators Jack Martins and Patricia Canzoneri Fitzpatrick, who represent different parts of Nassau County. The families received the letters during the last week of August.
“I get mail addressed to my mom, so it wasn't a surprise to me to get a letter addressed to her,” Port Washington resident Erin Molyneux told The Washington Post. “But I was surprised to see a letter from our state senator congratulating my mom on registering, and I thought, 'That's weird.'”
To add to the confusion, Molyneux called the state elections board and discovered his mother's name wasn't on the voter rolls.
Molyneux said his mother, Sant Harrison, had lived most of her life in Georgia and never had an address in New York, but was terminally ill and had only been in New York for the last 10 days of her life in January 2023.
“My real concern was that my mother was a victim of identity theft. I didn't want her name and reputation to be associated with an election fraud scheme,” Molyneux said. “I didn't want her name to be associated with stories of her voting from the grave or someone voting in her name.”
Nassau County Assembly Minority Leader Delia DeLighi Whitton (D-Port Washington) said in a letter to the state inspector general and the Division of Elections Enforcement that the congratulations “have caused great distress to the families of those killed.”
She added that the fact that “many of the deceased people mentioned in the letter were never registered to vote in New York State raises serious questions about the source of the data these senators are using.”
“It appears that government resources may have been improperly used to create these erroneous mailing lists, especially so shortly before a presidential election.”
In her letter, she speculated that Martins and Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick may have violated “several provisions.”
We comply with New York State law and ethical standards.”
Martins could not be reached for comment Saturday, but said at a press conference Friday that he had received a list of new voters from the State Board of Elections.
But the Election Commission countered that it was impossible to receive Mr Harrison's name from them, because there was no person by that name on their books. Statewide Voter Database.
Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick also could not be reached for comment Saturday.
