NEW YORK — An election integrity advocate claimed Wednesday that a significant portion of votes cast in the 2025 New York City mayoral election — which elevated democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani to City Hall — came from ineligible or nonexistent voters, and said federal authorities are now investigating.
Marly Hornik, founder of RealAmerica.Vote and the New York Citizens Audit, appeared on the Sid Rosenberg “Sid & Friends in the Morning” program on 77 WABC radio to discuss preliminary findings from her group’s “Know-Your-Voter” study of the race. According to Hornik, the analysis found that 7% of the voters “do not exist,” 6% had fake Social Security numbers, and 10% did not live in New York City.
“That’s not an election. Who is running NYC??” Hornik posted on X alongside a clip from the radio appearance. She added that allowing unqualified voters to cast ballots constitutes “felony election misconduct” when officials certify a false tally.
Hornik announced that U.S. Attorney John Sarcone of the Northern District of New York and the FBI’s Albany field office “are aggressively investigating.” She directed followers to a RealAmerica.Vote page that she said is “already running more names” and asked the public to help identify alleged fake voters so that “REAL American citizens ONLY choose our representatives.”
Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist and former state assemblymember, won the November 2025 mayoral election with just over 50% of the vote, defeating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa in a high-turnout contest that drew more than 2 million ballots — the highest for a New York City mayor’s race since 1969. He was sworn in as the city’s first Muslim mayor on Jan. 1, 2026.
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Hornik’s organizations have previously challenged New York voter rolls and election processes. In October 2025, New York Citizens Audit filed a federal lawsuit in the Northern District of New York against Attorney General Letitia James and the state Board of Elections, alleging inaccuracies in the voter file and seeking an audit of prior elections. The group has long argued that New York fails to properly verify voter eligibility.
No public confirmation of the alleged federal investigation has been issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York or the FBI Albany division. Sarcone, a Trump administration appointee who has faced legal challenges over his authority to serve in the role, has been involved in other high-profile matters but has not commented on the Mamdani race claims.
Hornik described the Know-Your-Voter findings as preliminary and emphasized that the study focuses on whether only qualified voters participated, rather than determining an alternate election outcome. “The problem is election misconduct,” she said in a follow-up post. “When fake people are casting tens of thousands of votes, the election officials have failed.”
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Claims of irregularities in the 2025 mayoral contest circulated widely before and after Election Day, including viral videos later identified as satire or jokes. Official fact-checks at the time found no evidence of widespread fraud, citing New York’s registration requirements, prohibitions on multiple voting, and other safeguards.
As of Thursday, neither Mamdani’s office nor the New York City Board of Elections had responded publicly to Hornik’s latest allegations. RealAmerica.Vote continues to solicit tips and public assistance in reviewing voter names associated with the study.
