For many years, New York voters have found candidates listed twice, three times or even more on their ballots when they go to the polling booth.
It isn’t an error – it’s a practice known as fusion voting that allows candidates to appear under multiple political parties if they are nominated by multiple parties.
But such intentional duplications on the New York City ballot this year, along with other layout choices, have some outside observers around the country wondering whether they are seeing evidence of rigged voting, including billionaire X owner Elon Musk.
“The New York City ballot form is a scam!” he wrote in an X post. “No ID is required. Other mayoral candidates appear twice. Cuomo’s name is last in bottom right.”
But there is nothing amiss about the ballots, which are in keeping with New York’s voting laws.
Fusion voting “occurs pretty frequently and it enables the Democratic candidate to get the votes of people who don’t normally vote for Democrats and Republicans to get the vote of people who don’t vote Republican etc.,” said Richard Briffault, an expert on election administration and a professor at Columbia Law School.
Cuomo is in the eighth spot because he filed to run as an independent later in the process.
