Eric Adams’s campaign files lawsuit amid NYC elections board drama

Eric Adams’s mayoral campaign filed a lawsuit on Wednesday after the New York City Board of Elections released an inaccurate vote tally in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary.

“Today we petitioned the court to preserve our right to a fair election process and to have a judge oversee and review ballots, if necessary,” the campaign said in a statement. “We are notifying the other campaigns of our lawsuit through personal service, as required by law, because they are interested parties.” 

“We invite the other campaigns to join us and petition the court as we all seek a clear and trusted conclusion to this election.”

The New York City Democratic mayoral primary was thrown into chaos this week after the Board of Elections acknowledged that it had botched a preliminary vote tally. 

The initial count was removed from the board’s website on Tuesday night. The board later said that it had failed to remove sample ballot images used to test its ranked-choice voting software from its election management system. In turn, when the board began going through the results, the program “counted both test and election night results, producing approximately 135,000 additional records.”

Adams, the Brooklyn Borough president, emerged as the front-runner after an initial count of votes on primary day last week. But the since-retracted vote tally Tuesday showed the race tightening significantly, with Adams’s top rivals Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley close behind him. 

The board issued an advisory on Tuesday night saying that ranked-choice voting results would be made available “starting on June 30.” Some 124,000 absentee ballots, which were due Tuesday, will not be counted until next week.