Long Island politicians are calling on state elections officials to investigate how a dozen Nassau and Suffolk families wound up receiving letters from two state senators, thanking their dead relatives for registering to vote in the upcoming election.
The letters of gratitude were sent from the offices of Republican State Sens. Jack Martins and Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick, who represent different parts of Nassau County. Relatives received the missives the last week of August.
“I get mail for my mother, so it’s not a surprise for me to receive letters for her,” Erin Molyneux, who lives in Port Washington, told The Post. “But I was surprised that I saw it was from our state senator, congratulating her on registering, and thought, ‘This is not right.’”
To make things more confusing, Molyneux called the state’s Board of Elections and learned his mother’s name wasn’t on the voting rolls.
Molyneux said his mother, Sang Harrison, lived most of her life in Georgia, and never had an actual New York address. Harrison, who was terminally ill, was only ever in New York for the last 10 days of her life in January 2023.
“The real worry I had was, is she a victim of identity theft? I don’t want her name and reputation associated with any election fraud schemes,” Molyneux said. “I don’t want my mom’s name associated with any story that she voted from the grave. or someone is voting in her name.”
In letters to the State Inspector and the Department of Election Enforcement, Nassau County Legislature Minority Leader Delia DeRiggi-Whitton (D, Port Washington) said the notes of congratulations “caused significant distress to the families of the deceased.”
Even more troubling, she continued, contained in the letters, “is the fact that many of the deceased individuals referenced in these letters had never registered to vote in the State of New York, raising serious questions about the source of the data being used by these senators.
“It appears that government resources may have been inappropriately utilized to compile these erroneous mailing lists, particularly just prior to a major presidential election.”
She inferred in her missives that Martins and Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick may have violated “several provisions
of New York State law and ethics standards.”
Martins could not be reached for comment Saturday, but said during a press conference Friday he received the list of new voters from the state Board of Elections.
However, the Board of Elections countered he couldn’t have received Harrison’s name from them, as there is no person with that name in the statewide voter database.
Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick also could not be reached for comment Saturday.
