FOCUS ON THE FACTS: New York City ballots show no evidence of election fraud

NEW YORK (AP) — For many years, New York voters have found candidates listed two, three times or even more times on their ballots when they go to the polls.

This is not a mistake – it is a practice known as combined voting that allows candidates to appear within multiple political parties.

But such deliberate duplication of New York City’s balloting this year, along with other planning choices, has some outside observers across the country wondering whether they see evidence of voting fraud in Tuesday’s widely-watched mayoral race.

X’s billionaire owner, Elon Musk, who briefly served as a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, was among those who criticized the polls.

“NYC’s ballot form is a scam!” “No ID required,” he wrote in X’s post. “Other mayoral candidates appear twice. Cuomo’s name is last at bottom right.”

But there’s nothing wrong with the ballots, which are in line with New York’s voting laws.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: New York City ballots are considered evidence of election fraud because some candidates appear twice, and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is listed at the bottom.

Facts: This is not true. Candidates may appear more than once on ballots in New York if they are nominated by multiple political parties – a practice called combined voting. Cuomo is in eighth place because he filed to run as an independent later in the process.

New York, along with Connecticut, is one of the few states where fusion voting is legal and commonly used. This practice has been around in New York since at least the mid-20th century. It is also legal in Oregon, Vermont, and Mississippi.

“This happens very frequently and enables the Democratic candidate to get the votes of people who don’t normally vote Democratic and Republicans to get the votes of people who don’t vote Republican and so on,” Richard Briffault, an election administration expert and professor at Columbia Law School, said of fusion voting in New York.

Two mayoral candidates appear twice this year on New York City ballots. Democratic candidate Zahran Mamdani is also the candidate of the Working Families Party, while Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa is also the candidate of the independent Animal Protection Party.

Combined voting does not allow candidates to receive more than one vote from the same elector, as voters may only vote for a candidate affiliated with one party.

Cuomo is a Democrat, but is running as an independent under a new party he created called Fight and Rescue after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani in June.

Under state law, there are currently four official parties on the ballot in New York — Democratic, Republican, Conservative, and Working Families Party — based on the number of votes their candidate received in recent presidential and gubernatorial elections. The number of votes also determines the order in which they appear on the next ballot, from highest to lowest.

Candidates must submit a petition to run as independents. Election boards determine the ballot ranking of independent parties, which must appear below the official parties.

“In the case of the New York City Board of Elections, this is determined by the date and time the independent nomination petition was submitted to that board,” said Kathleen McGrath, spokeswoman for the New York State Board of Elections.

According to McGrath, Cuomo’s Fight and Deliver Party was the fourth of five independent parties to petition for the nomination, meaning Cuomo is listed eighth on the ballot.

Mamdani is listed first in the Democratic Party and fourth in the Working Families Party. Saliwa comes in second place within the Republican Party, and fifth within the Animal Protection Party. Two other candidates running as independents — incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and attorney Jim Walden — dropped out of the race too late to be removed from the ballot.

“In short, Cuomo is listed only once because he has only been nominated once, and he is ranked low because no recognized political party has nominated him,” said Mark Lindemann, director of policy and strategy at Verified Voting. “Elon Musk certainly had people who would have been looking out for him.”

New York City does not require voters to show ID to vote unless they provide ID when they register. The country’s multi-layered electoral processes provide several safeguards that make voter fraud generally detectable and rare, the AP reported.

Musk’s representatives did not respond to a request for comment.