Sara Tirschwell was aiming to become the first woman to lead America’s largest city last year. She was making preparations to run on the GOP ticket and hired Steve Kramer of Get Out the Vote, the man who famously succeeded in getting the highly unlikely Kanye West onto several Presidential ballots. Tirschwell hired Kramer to gather 6,500 signatures and paid him $80,000 to do so. In the end, Kramer’s company failed to do so, however, they failed so specatacularly that according to Tirschwell’s attorneys it “shocks the conscience.”
According to the New York Post, the civil complaint filed by Sara Tirshwell stated
“Kramer’s negligence is extremely egregious given his substantial experience and reputation as an election and petition drive consultant. He was retained by the Campaign based on his prior experience aiding other candidates with signature gathering and election consulting,”
“Given Kramer’s substantial experience, Kramer’s malfeasance is so egregious that it suggests deliberate sabotage and malice … [and] is the direct cause of Tirschwell’s outrageous disqualification from the New York City Republican primary ballot and the primary election.”
Was The Failure Bad Enough to Be Malfeasance or Sabotage?
Let’s break it down: Why does Tirshwell insist this must Kramer & Co.’s failure to get her signatures is “malfeasance”? Here’s a few points:
- “Kramer allegedly assured the campaign he was on track to secure the signoffs needed, including at least 2,250 valid signatures, but the day the petitions were due to be submitted to the Board of Elections, he’d only secured 4,500 — 200 of which the campaign obtained themselves.”
- The signatures, when they were reviewed by the New York Board of Elections were overwhelimingly deemed invalid. Only 546 of the 4,500 were accepted it strains all credulity that 3,952 signatures could be rejected when the 2020 Presidential Election saw allegedly record-low numbers of ballots rejected based on signature.
- According to the complaint Kramer hasn’t responded to Tirchwell’s attorneys and is “shamefully unapologetic.”
Will Kramer Cry “COVID”?
Kramer has been President of Get Out The Vote since 1999. In August 2020 Kramer appeared on a Digital Politics with Karen Jagoda discussing “changes to the world of live call centers, door-to-door, texting campaigns & phone surveys in the age of COVID-19.” His views expressed could suggest that he may lean in to the COVID19 related difficulties of in-person politicking in his defense.
Kramer’s failure to get the required signatures for Tirschwell leaves Guardian Angel and Conservative Talk Show Host Curtis Sliwa and Taxi drivers’ and bodega advocate Fernando Matteo to battle for the GOP nomination.
Interstingly, the exposure of Kramer’s unbelievably bad performance for Tirschwell could shed light on Kanye West’s abysmmal returns in the 2020 election. To borrow a line from Mel Brooks’ “The Producers”: “You can make more money with a flop than with a hit.”
So if malfeasance is proven, doesn’t that automatically prove fraud, including in the money paid?