Democratic Party operatives in southern Brooklyn listed a deceased community leader as a candidate on petition forms that also carried House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries' name, a move critics say was designed to exploit the dead man's local popularity and harvest signatures in a conservative-leaning district where Jeffries would otherwise struggle to attract them.
Robert Gevertzman, a longtime member of Brooklyn Community Board 15 and a well-known centrist Democrat, died in March 2025 at the age of 76. Yet his name cleared the petition-checking process and appeared on Democratic primary petitions as a candidate for the Kings County Democratic Committee, running unopposed, slated to appear just below Jeffries on the ticket in next month's primary.
His widow, June Gevertzman, told the New York Post she was unaware her husband had been listed as a candidate. She called it "silly" and said she prefers him off the ballot.
The petitions circulated earlier this year in parts of the 45th Assembly District, which covers Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, and Manhattan Beach, a rare section of Brooklyn considered a Republican stronghold. Gevertzman was well-regarded in those neighborhoods, and his presence on the petitions likely helped Jeffries draw signatures from registered voters who normally would not have signed, the Post reported.
The petitions listed Jeffries at the top. Below him were Gevertzman and two other candidates backed by the Kings County Democratic Committee, all running unopposed for three of the committee's more than 4,400 seats. Those committee members have historically been described as cronies willing to amend rules to benefit party leaders and help keep them in power.
But the dead man's name was not the only irregularity. Separate petitions circulated in the same district sought to secure a second ballot line, under the "Fight Antisemitism Party", for Joey Cohen-Saban, a local Democratic district leader, and state Sen. Sam Sutton. Both are Democrats. Both were falsely presented to voters as independents by at least one canvasser working the neighborhood.
Video recorded on Monday outside a supermarket on Avenue U in Gravesend captured a one-armed male canvasser in his twenties collecting signatures. When an undercover Republican operative asked, "These guys, they're not Democrats?" the canvasser replied flatly: "No, no." A second video filmed on Tuesday showed the same canvasser, this time with a different companion, again falsely telling prospective signers that Cohen-Saban was not a Democrat.
Election integrity has become a flashpoint across the country, with uncounted ballots turning up months after certification in California and legal fights over ballot-handling procedures making national headlines.
Cohen-Saban dismissed Gevertzman's appearance on the petitions as a mistake. He called it "nothing more" than a "clerical error" that "we regret." As for the canvassers who misrepresented candidates' party affiliations, Cohen-Saban said they were outside contractors who were "uniformed", apparently meaning uninformed, about the rules.
"They didn't know that someone could run on more than one line."
Cohen-Saban added that the petition circulators have since been told they are collecting third-party signatures for candidates already on the Democratic line. That explanation raises its own question: if the canvassers were merely confused, why were they recorded on two separate days repeating the same false claim to voters?
State Assemblyman Michael Novakhov, a Brooklyn Republican who represents the area, offered a sharper assessment. Novakhov contends Democratic leaders deliberately deployed canvassers to mislead voters about his opponent's party affiliation, a tactic aimed at undermining him in his own district.
"Running dead people shocks the conscience, and so does lying to and misleading the voters about which party you represent. It is disgraceful, dishonest, and an insult to the voters of this district and to the Gevertzman family."
The Brooklyn Democratic Party chairperson, state Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, did not return messages seeking comment. Jeffries himself declined to comment.
Jeffries' refusal to address the matter is notable. The House Minority Leader has previously accused Republicans of needing to cheat to win elections. Brooklyn Republican Party Chairman Liam McCabe seized on that record:
"It's funny that Hakeem Jeffries accused the [Republicans of needing to cheat to win,] and we literally have found multiple examples of Democrats in his own Congressional district cheating and lying to win including with petitions with his name at top. Unfortunately, the joke is on us."
McCabe's frustration reflects a broader pattern. Democrats routinely lecture about election integrity and democratic norms while their own local machines engage in precisely the kind of corner-cutting they claim to oppose. The legal battles over ballot fraud investigations in other states only underscore how reluctant the political establishment is to hold its own side accountable.
The Kings County Democratic Committee, with its 4,400-plus seats, functions as the backbone of Brooklyn's Democratic machine. Most of those seats attract no attention and no opposition. They are filled by loyalists who vote the way party leadership wants on internal rules and endorsements. Placing a dead man on a petition for one of those seats, whether through sloppiness or design, suggests a machine that operates on autopilot, indifferent to even basic standards of honesty.
And the broader question of how Gevertzman's name "cleared the petition-checking process" remains unanswered. No one has explained what authority reviewed the petitions, what verification steps were taken, or how a man who died months earlier passed muster. Cohen-Saban's "clerical error" explanation does not address the systemic failure that allowed it.
The people most harmed by this kind of manipulation are the residents of Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, and Manhattan Beach, conservative-leaning voters in a district that already feels politically underrepresented in deep-blue Brooklyn. They were asked to sign petitions under false pretenses. They were told candidates were independents when those candidates were Democrats. And they were presented with the name of a neighbor they trusted and respected, a man who was already dead.
The ongoing legal disputes over election procedures at the highest levels of the judiciary make clear that the rules governing how Americans vote matter enormously. When local party bosses treat those rules as optional, voters lose faith, not just in one party, but in the system itself.
No formal complaints have been publicly reported to election authorities or law enforcement. Whether anyone will be held accountable remains an open question. The primary is next month. Gevertzman is still on the ballot.
Meanwhile, Democratic leaders in Washington continue to position themselves as defenders of democratic norms, even as their own Brooklyn operation can't manage to keep a dead man off the ticket.
The party that never stops talking about threats to democracy might want to check its own petitions first.