FRAUD WARRANTED INVALIDATION OF THE DESIGNATING PETITION (FOURTH DEPT).
The Fourth Department determined the designating petition was properly invalidated on the basis of fraud:
“As a general rule, a candidate's designating petition will be invalidated on the ground of fraud only if there is a showing that the entire designating petition is permeated with that fraud” … . “Even where the designating petition is not permeated with fraud, however, when the candidate has participated in or is chargeable with knowledge of the fraud, the designating petition will generally be invalidated” (id. at 509). Here, petitioners established that multiple subscribing witnesses, including respondent, attested falsely that they had witnessed certain signatures on the designating petition inasmuch as they had allowed third-parties to sign the petition on behalf of the person named as the signatory on the designating petition … , and that respondent attested to certain signatures although he was not “in the presence of the signatories when [they] signed the [designating] petition” … . Thus, the court properly determined that respondent's participation in fraudulent acts warranted invalidating the designating petition for the Democratic Party … . Matter of Buttenschon v Salatino, 2018 NY Slip Op 05988, Fourth Dept 9-7-18
ELECTION LAW (FRAUD WARRANTED INVALIDATION OF THE DESIGNATING PETITION (FOURTH DEPT))/FRAUD (ELECTION LAW, FRAUD WARRANTED INVALIDATION OF THE DESIGNATING PETITION (FOURTH DEPT))