Len Bernardo, the Ulster County Independence Party Boss.

Citizens who meant to register as unaffiliated voters
find themselves party members

Read The Daily News article published Tuesday, December 11, 2012.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• People checked the box beside the name Independence Party, believing they had filed to be independent of any party affiliation.
• The party’s leaders have ridden this confusion to power — despite backgrounds that would seem to qualify them as fringe political players.
• Independence Party leaders are trading on deception in voter registration and, surely and most seriously, at the polls. As the courts have clearly stated, both are intolerable in New York.
• The error rate flies in the face of New York’s policy of minimizing all possible voter confusion.
• Statutes and court decisions are clear about two commandments:
  Thou shalt not allow voters to be led into making unintended choices, and
  Thou shalt not gain political power by deception.
  These commandments must be enforced.

Read The Daily News article