City Council member Corazón Pineda-Isaac is running for Mayor of Yonkers this year. Not only is she seeking the Democratic nomination against Mayor Spano, but she was also endorsed by the Working Families Party. However, after her WFP candidate petitions were disqualified, an unknown shadow candidate will now have that ballot line.
The City of Yonkers only has about 450 registered Working Families Party voters. This is in contrast to the over 57 thousand registered Democrats. However, having your name on the ballot as many times as possible is beneficial. Especially if you wish to run in the general election after potentially losing the Democratic primary.
To get on the ballot you only need a fraction of a party’s voters to sign your petitions. Nevertheless, opponents will always challenge the validity of your signatures in an attempt to disqualify you from making the ballot at all. And in this case, it seems to have worked. We are still awaiting details on the challenge itself. But, suffice to say, Corazón Pineda-Isaac will not be representing the WFP for mayor of Yonkers this year.
Instead, an unknown candidate will appear on that ballot line. Allison Abramson is a 26 year-old mystery candidate living on Sadore Lane. She has released no announcement, held no fundraisers, and barely exists online at all. While one may think this is an underdog story, it is not. Abramson is almost certainly a plant.
A plant is a candidate with no intention of winning who was cajoled into putting their name up by a campaign opposed to Pineda-Isaac. By reviewing Abramson’s petitions, it’s obvious the person likely behind her campaign is former Yonkers GOP chairman, convicted felon, and current Democratic campaign operative for the Spano machine, Zehy Jereis. The petitions submitted for Abramson read like the guest list to a Jereis family cookout. Even the sole witness to these signatures is a nephew of Zehy that’s been reportedly vying for a city job for years.
Is all of this legal? Absolutely. Even if Abramson has no desire to be mayor, and people register to be WFP voters solely for the purpose of gaming the system, there’s no law against it. It’s just another example of what a good friend of mine and political expert calls, “politricks.”
We are awaiting a formal statement from the Pineda-Isaac campaign. However, the Westchester-Putnam Chapter of the WFP has released the following:
Political operatives tied to Mike Spano disregarded our member-led endorsement process and used the ballot laws to place a plant on the WFP ballot line in the Yonkers Mayor race. The WFP strongly supports our endorsed candidate, Corazón Pineda-Isaac, as the next Mayor of Yonkers and we reject this attempt by Spano to subvert our party and pack it with people who do not share our values. This is wrong and unethical. The voters of Yonkers deserve a system based on integrity and honesty, not tricks and backroom political maneuvering.
