Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is not having a good month. The longtime LES pol is smack in the smack in the middle of the ongoing Vito Gropez scandal (though he'll probably be fine—Albany!) and now his children are being investigated for voter fraud.
Last week the Post noted that three of Silver's grown children, who do not live nearby (and in one case even New York), came and voted at a Delancey Street polling place in Silver's district last Thursday. Now, there is no way to know that they voted for their father, but it is a little suspicious, no? So today the Daily News reports that the Manhattan DA has started a preliminary review of the case "to determine if a bona fide investigation is warranted." The DA's office, for its part, is not talking about it.
Voter registration issues are rarely brought to court, the paper notes. Since 1873 there have only been two convictions regarding voter fraud in New York: Brooklyn lawyer John O'Hara in 1999 (he listed his address as being his girlfriends) and Susan B. Anthony in 1873 (really? Look her up). As State Board of Elections rep John Conklin tells it, "courts have given wide latitude, ruling in one case that one can register to vote 'as long as there is legitimate, significant and continuing attachments' to a residence." But even that argument could be kind of pushing it in the case of Silver's son Ben, who reportedly bought a home in New Jersey in 2005.
