A 76-year-old Brooklyn community leader who died in March cleared the petition-checking process and is now slated to appear on next month's Democratic primary ballot, listed directly below House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the New York Post reported. Robert Gevertzman, a former long-serving member of Brooklyn Community Board 15 and a well-known centrist Democrat in the Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach area, will run unopposed for a Kings County Democratic Committee seat, months after his death.

The petitions that carried Gevertzman's name were also used to collect signatures to help get Jeffries back on the ballot. Petition copies reviewed by the Post included Gevertzman and two other candidates backed by the Kings County Democratic Committee, all three running unopposed for seats on the committee's 4,400-plus roster.

That a dead man survived the petition-checking process and landed on an official primary ticket tells you something about the rigor of Democratic Party operations in southern Brooklyn. It also raises a harder question: who benefits when a beloved local name draws voters to a petition, and a ballot, that features the House minority leader at the top?

A family blindsided

Gevertzman's widow, June Gevertzman, told the Post she was unaware her husband had been listed as a candidate. She called the situation "silly" and said she would prefer him removed from the ballot.

No formal complaint, investigation, or legal challenge has been reported. And no election authority has publicly announced removing Gevertzman's name.

Jeffries' camp said it "wasn't involved in the signature-gathering process." Jeffries himself declined to comment. Brooklyn Democratic Party Chairperson Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, an assemblywoman whom Republican officials named as a key figure in the matter, did not return messages.

Republicans call it what it looks like

State Assemblyman Michael Novakhov, the Brooklyn Republican whom local Democratic district leader Joey Cohen-Saban is trying to unseat, did not mince words. Novakhov said:

"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."

Novakhov and other Brooklyn Republican officials contend that Cohen-Saban and Bichotte Hermelyn are the main figures behind what they describe as efforts to mislead voters in the 45th Assembly District, a rare section of Brooklyn considered a GOP stronghold.

Brooklyn Republican Party Chairman Liam McCabe sharpened the point further, tying the episode directly to Jeffries' own rhetoric. McCabe said:

"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."

The irony is hard to miss. Jeffries has positioned himself as a champion of democratic norms and election integrity. Yet in his own congressional district, petitions bearing his name at the top also carried the name of a man who had been dead for weeks, and no one in the party apparatus caught it, or cared to.

The canvasser videos

The dead-candidate problem is only one thread. The Post also obtained videos filmed this week showing petition canvassers outside a supermarket on Avenue U in Gravesend collecting signatures for a "Fight Antisemitism Party" ballot line. The canvassers were seeking to secure Cohen-Saban and state Sen. Sam Sutton a second ballot line under that party name.

In the Monday video, an unidentified canvasser repeatedly told people that Cohen-Saban and Sutton were "independents." When an undercover GOP operative asked, "These guys, they're not Democrats?" the canvasser responded, "No, no." Both Cohen-Saban and Sutton are, in fact, Democrats. A separate video filmed Tuesday showed the same canvasser making the same claim alongside a different companion.

Cohen-Saban, who is running in a tight race against Novakhov in the 45th Assembly District, acknowledged the problem but framed it narrowly. He called the inclusion of Gevertzman on petitions "nothing more" than a "clerical error" that "we regret." As for the canvassers misleading voters about party affiliation, Cohen-Saban said the workers were outside contractors who simply did not understand the system.

"They didn't know that someone could run on more than one line. It [has since been] made clear to these petition circulators that they are collecting third-party-signatures for candidates that are already on the Democratic line."

That explanation asks voters to believe that paid petition circulators, people whose entire job is to collect valid ballot signatures, did not know the candidates they were pitching were Democrats. And that the campaign that hired them never briefed them on that basic fact.

A pattern, not an accident

Taken separately, a dead man on a petition might pass as a sloppy clerical mistake. Canvassers lying about party affiliation might be written off as rogue contractors. But when both problems surface in the same district, on the same side, in the same election cycle, the "oops" defense starts to wear thin.

The 45th Assembly District, covering Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, and Manhattan Beach, is competitive territory. The Post described it as a section of Brooklyn that leans toward the GOP. Cohen-Saban needs every edge he can find against the incumbent Novakhov, and a second ballot line under the "Fight Antisemitism Party" banner could pull votes from people who might not otherwise check a box next to a Democrat's name. Telling voters the candidates are "independents" makes that strategy work. Telling the truth makes it harder.

The Kings County Democratic Committee, meanwhile, has long operated as a sprawling apparatus. With more than 4,400 committee seats, many of them historically filled by party loyalists, the committee functions as the organizational backbone of Brooklyn's Democratic machine. Gevertzman, a popular centrist figure in the conservative-leaning southern Brooklyn neighborhoods, would have been a useful name on any petition circulating in that area, alive or dead. His presence on the same petition as Jeffries gave the signature-gathering effort local credibility in a part of the district where the national Democratic brand does not sell as easily.

Whether that was the intent or merely the effect, the party has offered no explanation for how a man who died in March ended up clearing the petition-checking process. No one has named the official or office responsible for that review. The two other committee candidates listed alongside Gevertzman have not been publicly identified. And as Democrats wrestle with internal divisions across the country, the Brooklyn machine appears more concerned with consolidating power than policing its own process.

Jeffries' silence

Hakeem Jeffries is not accused of personally placing Gevertzman on the petition. His camp's statement that it was not involved in the signature-gathering process may well be true. But the petitions carried his name at the top. The signatures collected helped get him back on the ballot. And the dead man listed below him added local appeal in a neighborhood where Gevertzman was well known and well liked.

Jeffries declined to comment. That silence is a choice. The House minority leader, a man who has built his public identity around democratic accountability and institutional trust, could have condemned the error, demanded an investigation, or called for Gevertzman's removal from the ballot. He did none of those things.

When congressional Democrats talk about accountability in Washington, they expect the public to take them seriously. But accountability that applies only to the other party is not accountability. It is branding.

What remains unanswered

Several questions hang over this episode. What official body conducted the petition-checking process that cleared a dead man? Will any election authority remove Gevertzman from the ballot before next month's primary? Has any formal complaint been filed? Who are the two other committee candidates listed on the same petition? And did anyone in the Brooklyn Democratic Party know Gevertzman had died before the petitions were submitted?

None of these questions have public answers yet. The Brooklyn Democratic Party chairperson has not responded. The candidate who hired the canvassers blames outside contractors. And while Democrats in Congress focus their energy on opposing Republican priorities, their own local machinery is listing dead men on ballots and sending canvassers into the street to lie about party affiliation.

June Gevertzman, the widow who learned from a reporter that her late husband was still running for office, called it "silly." That is a generous word for it.

Robert Gevertzman served his community for years. He deserved better than to have his legacy exploited for petition signatures after his death. The voters of southern Brooklyn deserve better than canvassers who lie to their faces about which party a candidate belongs to. And the Democratic Party, which never tires of lecturing the rest of the country about the sanctity of elections, deserves every bit of scrutiny this episode invites.

If you want to know how seriously a party takes election integrity, don't listen to its speeches. Watch what it puts on the ballot.