Levenberg challenger bows out
A Cortlandt Manor woman who hoped to force a primary vote against Assembly Member Dana Levenberg, a Democrat whose district includes Philipstown, dropped out of the race this week after the state Board of Elections threw out most of the signatures on her nominating petition.
A hearing officer scuttled the petition by invalidating nearly 80 percent of the signatures, putting Amanda Victoria Mintz far below the 500 needed to appear on the ballot.
On Monday (April 28), in letter to the court, Victoria Mintz said she was “conceding in advance” of a meeting in which the BOE was expected to officially invalidate her petition.
Through an attorney, she claimed that the state’s requirement that petition signers include their town along with their municipality was unconstitutional under a federal ruling concerning the presidential campaign in 2000.
“I had assured my signees that their voices would be represented when they nobly signed to put me forth as their chosen representative and am embarrassed to report to them that they were invalidated because of this,” Victoria Mintz wrote.
In an online comment, Victoria Mintz described The Current’s reporting on the challenges as “deep-state propaganda.”
Deep-state propaganda? Where have I heard that before?
Thank you so much for running this correction! This first article was adjusted so much and had so many points wrong, including my name. This is why I referenced it as propoganda, because it was not considering me as a direct source being a subject of the piece, which was extremely troublesome. It also appeared that the only source was my challengers’ lawyer, which felt biased, hence the “deep state” reference; career politicians sometimes call in favors to journalists to make their opponents look bad. Why wasn’t I contacted as the subject of the piece for commenting? Why did no one call me back when I left a message? I stressfully sent dozens of emails to an editor to bring light to the full story and was left unsatisfied and a bit scared, as a local resident of our community.
I hope this updated article brings awareness to the community of village vs town designations when signing candidate petitions as an archaic requirement. Hundreds of my signees made this “mistake”. I didn’t guide them to correct it because I was also unaware. Example: Croton-on-Hudson would have to be recorded as Town of Cortlandt, Cold Spring as Philipstown. I believe this to be unconstitutional, which I raised in court, and that the state elections office should amend this requirement to recognize our “village” residences, AKA our postal mailing address to be adequate enough.
Ultimately my former opponent took away my chance to challenge her on technicalities in a way that lacks sportsmanship, while also disenfranchising people of the community that signed my petitions just to give me a chance to run. This is a popular career politician playbook move and could happen to ANYONE who challenges the current state of local politics which is worrisome to a so called “democracy”. It is an egregious use of our taxpayer dollars.
Thank you again, Highland Current Staff, for this updated reporting.
I find it suspect that after dropping out due to ineptitude and attacking our respected Jewish Assembly member, she has been posting conspiracy theories about undue Jewish influence on elections in politics on her Instagram. An individual with such shameful behavior demonstrating an obvious insecurity about her own lack of experience and qualifications has no business attempting to represent our community.