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According to the "Washington Post", at least two long-dead Democratic voters in southern Brooklyn submitted ballots to the City Election Commission in the name of mailed ballots-where fierce competition continues.

The legitimacy of absentee ballots has become a fiercely competitive issue for the 43rd District City Council in the region. Republican Brian Fox leads the current Democratic President Justin Brannan with 255 votes. At least 1,622 such votes have not been counted.

Fox's amazing lead over Brannan — he has been campaigning to become the next influential speaker of the Congress — appears to be part of a wave of Republican elections that has swept Democrats in the region and parts of the country.

The area includes the Bay Ridge, Bath Beach, Dyke Heights, and Bensonhurst communities.

The records of the Election Commission show that someone asked to vote in September in the name of Francesca Patinella, a Democrat born in 1926 and died on March 24, 2010.

The municipal election agency subsequently wrote on its absentee ballot tracking website on September 28, saying to the dead woman: "We have your ballot. Your valid absentee ballot has been received at the Bank of England."

Another mailed ballot was submitted in the name of Yvonne Abssi, who died on March 2, 2012. According to the Bank of England records, Absey was also born in 1926 and was recorded as requiring an absentee ballot in September.

"We received your vote," the Bank of England responded in the Absey case on October 4.

A day later, the Bank of England declared the Absey ballot "invalid" because the voter was "deceased."

It is not clear whether Patinella was declared invalid at some point.

Representatives of the Election Committee did not immediately comment on the votes received in the name of the dead voters.

The Fox campaign claimed that 11 absentee ballots were requested in the name of dead "voters" including Patinella and Absey.

Fox said that his campaign team discovered the problem, which made him suspect that mail-in vote fraud might bias the election in favor of Brannan.

"Needless to say, I'm still curious about why Justin Brannan is so confident in victory. He seems to know what's in the sealed ballot envelope. In view of our discovery of fraud, I ask him to come back from Puerto Rico and check with me with a fine-toothed comb. These votes," Fox said, referring to the MP’s participation in the Somos meeting in San Juan last week.

"Voting for the dead is something in Tammany Hall, and we deserve something better than this," Fox said. "I believe that when all legal votes are counted-emphasizing'legal'-I will win this game."

But Brannan said that after counting all the mailed votes, Fox was just preparing an excuse for the expected loss.

Brannan said: "I have no doubt [Fox] would say that once the number of absentees was counted, we were declared the winners and we stole the election."

Brannan's camp pointed out that many older voters are on the list of permanent absentee ballots and will automatically receive votes. Due to the lag, they may receive absentee votes after death. Such unreturned ballots will not be counted as ballots.

In the unofficial machine count, Fox leads Brannan with 12,145 votes to 11,890 votes.

According to the Bank of England, 1,622 valid absentee ballots have been returned so far. Of these, 1,245 were returned by registered Democrats, 224 were returned by Republicans, 14 were returned by the Conservative Party, 4 were returned by members of the Working Family Party, and 139 were returned by non-affiliated voters and/or other party members.

A representative from the Bank of England said that the calculation of absentee votes in the Brannon-Fox campaign will begin on Monday.

The high percentage of the Democratic Party's mailed votes made Brannan hope he can win.

But a political source in Brooklyn warned that some of the more conservative Democrats in southern Brooklyn crossed party lines.

The Suffolk County Attorney charged in October 2020 a man guilty of voter fraud by requesting absentee ballots in the name of his deceased mother.