Damon Maher on His Decision to Enter New Rochelle Democratic Mayoral Primary

NEW ROCHELLE, NY (February 18, 2023) — Westchester County Legislator Damon Maher issued a statement today explaining how a last-minute transformation of weighted-vote totals used to nominate candidates amounted to a rigged election at Thursday’s New Rochelle Democratic Committee “mini-convention” and spurred him to challenge the party nominee in the Democratic Party Mayoral primary.

The New Rochelle Primary will end on June 27, 2023; Early Voting will be June 17, 2023 – June 25, 2023. Primary candidates cannot officially begin campaigning until February 27.

Maher is not alone in raising questions about the unorthodox “vote packing” scheme which has all the classic earmarks of a Bramson vote manipulation operation.

Kwamaine Dixon, a candidate for Council District 3, described the mini-convention as a lesson in “just how dirty politics can be.”

A motion to postpone the mini-convention one week to afford candidates an opportunity to investigate and challenge the dramatic changes in weighted-vote totals thrust upon the Democratic Committee was supported by Westchester County Clerk Tim Idoni and Gene Tozzi, a well-respected member of the party, among others.

Maher Statement

The New Rochelle Democratic District Leaders received new “weighted vote” allocations at 4:47 pm on the day before the preference poll run by local party bosses. The new figures, used by the committee to calculate the weighted votes to decide which candidate to support, differed greatly from the previous Election District allocations. They don’t come close to fairly reflecting the voting strength of the parts of New Rochelle that I have represented in the County Legislature for 5-plus years and where I have been most popular. I refused to participate in this deeply flawed process and removed my name from consideration in the party committee vote, announcing that I will instead run full-tilt in the June 27 primary to let the voters decide.

For context, the average weighted vote of a District Leader is usually about 100. I have 99 myself, which hasn’t changed despite my representing the downtown block where I live, in one of the brand new high-rise buildings where most of the people moved in within the past year. The weighted votes also stayed the same in almost all of the neighborhoods where I have name recognition and have drawn the bulk of my votes in three successful County Legislature elections.

Here are a few examples of changes made to voting allocations outside “my” strong areas, literally on the eve of this preference poll.

The total weighted votes for one of the current Councilmembers (who supports her fellow Councilmember Yadira Ramos-Herbert) and her husband increased from 141.5 to 472.0.

The figure for another Council candidate supporting Ramos-Herbert went from 132.0 to 229.5.

The person who made the nomination speech in support of her candidacy went from 10.5 to 159.5.

The numbers for two other District Leaders who didn’t support me went from 153.5 each to 460.5 each.

I look forward to the Democratic primary in June.

EDITOR’S NOTE: It does not take a Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang Decoder Ring to match names to the shift in weighted-vote totals listed in Maher’s statement.

• Martha Lopez-Hanratty (and her husband): 141.5 to 472.0
• Liane Merchant: 132.0 to 229.5.
• Noam Bramson: 10.5 to 159.5.
• Jovan Richards: 153.5 to 460.5
• Elieser Valentin: 153.5 to 460.5