Petition-Gathering or Political Sleight of Hand?
The heartbeat of democracy should be the people’s voice—messy, diverse, sometimes disagreeing, but authentic. Recent revelations about New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ re-election petition, however, suggest democracy’s foundation is wobbling under the weight of systemic shortcuts and compromised ethics. According to a detailed Gothamist investigation, Adams’ campaign submitted nearly 50,000 signatures to secure a place as an independent candidate on the upcoming mayoral ballot. At least 52 signatures have been confirmed as forged or otherwise fraudulent, while thousands more remain under scrutiny.
The scale of the issue left many New Yorkers reeling: among the dubious signatures were those of deceased individuals and people who had no idea their names were being used to support Adams’ candidacy. In one stunning example, a single campaign worker claimed to have gathered over 700 signatures in a single day—a feat that strains credibility. Mayor Adams, when pressed, dismissed the Gothamist findings as par for the course, suggesting fraudulent signatures are just “part of the business.”
Such a brush-off is deeply problematic. Is the casual admission of fraud the new standard in local politics? Sarah Steiner, a veteran New York election lawyer, challenged this logic directly: “Collecting signatures on the street means some could be invalid or illegible, but they’re real people—this density of outright forgeries is abnormal for any campaign with integrity.” Given that Adams was the only mayoral candidate to hire an out-of-state firm, Wyoming-based Public Appeal, to help collect signatures, questions are swirling about both oversight and intent.
The Undermined Integrity of Elections
Election petitions aren’t just bureaucratic checkboxes; they’re supposed to act as the first barrier against unserious, fringe, or fraudulently-backed candidates. When a well-funded mayor honors the bare minimum of electoral trust, the result is a deepening civic cynicism. Harvard historian Alexander Keyssar underscores this danger: “Processes like petitioning exist to ensure actual, meaningful public support—not to be manipulated as mere formalities.”
Sources reveal not only the odd dead voter but also numerous allegedly forged signatures penned in eerily consistent handwriting across petition sheets. The campaigns also failed to hire outside auditors for vetting—a step recommended in advance by some of their own consultants. These are not small errors. The Adams campaign reportedly paid more than $220,000 to several companies for signature-gathering, with Public Appeal and Manhattan-based MY Br& among the beneficiaries. Was this money spent ensuring public engagement, or just purchasing plausible deniability?
Beyond that, veteran election lawyers warn of cascading consequences. Jerry Goldfeder, chair of the American Bar Association’s Election Law Committee, told Gothamist, “When a campaign submits this kind of fraudulent paperwork, it often results in referrals to prosecutors. It’s not just a technical error—it’s an attack on the legitimacy of our system.” While Adams’ ballot status likely remains secure, the normalization of such tactics sets a dangerous precedent for political actors at every level.
“Processes like petitioning exist to ensure actual, meaningful public support—not to be manipulated as mere formalities.”
Longtime residents who discovered their names misused or forged felt a blend of shock, violation, and anger. One Brooklyn woman, unaware until notified by reporters, called it “a complete betrayal of trust.” These are more than mere technical violations—they’re personal affronts to engagement, and they chip away at trust in the system.
Historical Parallels and the Stakes for Democracy
A closer look reveals that this is not an isolated incident—American political history is littered with efforts to manipulate voter lists, ballots, and signatures. Tammany Hall’s notorious shenanigans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries spring to mind. Yet, in an era already plagued with distrust and misinformation, every fresh episode of fraud accelerates the decay of our shared civic bedrock. Left unchecked, the “everybody does it” defense erodes the collective expectation that those who seek power must play by the rules.
Academic studies repeatedly show that such erosions of democratic process harm those already marginalized the most. Political scientist Vesla Weaver of Johns Hopkins notes that “when citizens believe the deck is stacked or that fraud is just part of politics, participation drops—especially among young, poor, and nonwhite communities.” These revelations risk pushing cynicism to new heights in a city already reeling from economic and social strain.
Does Adams’ campaign reflect the city’s most diverse voices—or simply subverts them with bureaucratic sleight of hand? Campaigns must go beyond compliance and actively work to restore faith in the institutions they wish to lead. This means independent audits, refusing to normalize signature fraud, and—most critically—embracing the spirit, not just the letter, of participatory democracy.
Holding leaders accountable for the actions of their campaigns isn’t just progressive idealism. It’s a necessity if American democracy is to survive and thrive, especially in a city that has so often led the nation in expanding rights and political imagination. While no system will be perfect, lowering the bar by excusing fraud as part of the “business” only emboldens those with fewer scruples and further disenfranchises honest New Yorkers.
Restoring Public Trust: Progressive Solutions
There’s no question: the road to restoring public confidence in local democracy will be arduous. Experts and reformers have long called for reforms—publicly accessible verification databases, randomized signature checks, and strict penalties for intentional fraud—to ensure campaigns are rooted in genuine, popular support, not inflated numbers or shadowy contractors. Oversight should be transparent. Communities should be empowered to check whether they’re being misrepresented, and campaigns must take the lead in rejecting shortcuts that erode civic trust.
City Hall and its mayoral office can—and must—do better. If the institutions tasked with defending democracy abdicate their role, what message does that send to the next generation of leaders? Elections must not become games of procedural hide-and-seek, but moments of collective assertion that shape the common good. That’s not a liberal ideal; it’s the bedrock promise of American self-rule.
Will Mayor Adams seize this scandal as an opportunity for real reform—or just hope that, once again, the headlines blow away? The answer may shape not just his legacy, but the very trajectory of democratic engagement in New York City and beyond.
