Eric Adams, the current leader in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, said Tuesday that there were “irregularities” in the city’s vote tally.
“The vote total just released by the Board of Elections is 100,000-plus more than the total announced on election night, raising serious questions,” Adams’ campaign said in a Tuesday statement after the board announced that he leads former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia by just under 16,000 votes. 124,000 absentee ballots have yet to be counted, according to the New York Times.
Eric Adams’ statement, which goes there pic.twitter.com/xhYORu3Mqy
— Dana Rubinstein (@danarubinstein) June 29, 2021
“We have asked the Board of Elections to explain such a massive increase and other irregularities before we comment on the ranked choice voting projection,” the statement continues. “We remain confident that Eric Adams will be the next mayor of New York because he put together a historic five borough working class coalition of New Yorkers to make our city a safer, fairer, more affordable place.”
The New York City Board of Elections later announced that it is investigating “a discrepancy in the unofficial RCV round by round elimination report.”
We are aware there is a discrepancy in the unofficial RCV round by round elimination report. We are working with our RCV technical staff to identify where the discrepancy occurred. We ask the public, elected officials and candidates to have patience.
— NYC Board of Elections (@BOENYC) June 29, 2021
A spokeswoman for the NYC Board of Elections told the New York Times that the discrepancy had to do with “difference in votes cast.” The board posted a new advisory Tuesday evening saying that the “unofficial rank choice results” would be available on June 30.
The board also released a statement late Tuesday night explaining the discrepancy.
“When the cast vote records were extracted for the first pull of RCV results, it included both test and election night results, producing approximately 135,000 additional records,” the statement said.
— NYC Board of Elections (@BOENYC) June 30, 2021
The Adams campaign did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.
The New York City Board of Elections did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.
Adams, a former police officer and Brooklyn Borough President, has led throughout the Democratic primary, which was conducted by ranked-choice voting for the first time. He has centered his campaign around rising crime rates and housing costs. (RELATED: Eric Adams, Kathryn Garcia In Nail-Biting Race To Become New York City’s Next Mayor)
Adams previously suggested that Garcia and Andrew Yang, who dropped out on election night, conspired to “suppress the vote” of non-white voters by telling their supporters to rank each other second.
“I assure voters that no one is gonna steal the election from me,” Adams said when a reporter asked him to clarify his comments.
Editors note: This post has been updated to reflect new information from the NYC Board of Elections.