NY-27: WIVB’s Dave Greber reported Thursday that the Erie County district attorney’s office has received a complaint accusing Republican state Sen. Chris Jacobs of committing voter fraud during last year’s local elections, and attorney Beth Parlato quickly turned the story into an ad. Jacobs faces both Parlato and Erie County Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw in Tuesday’s GOP primary for this 60-35 Trump seat in the Buffalo area; Jacobs is also the Republican nominee for a special election to succeed disgraced former Rep. Chris Collins that is taking place that same day.
Parlato’s narrator declares that Jacobs “is under criminal investigation for voter fraud. Falsifying documents to claim he lived in our district. But he never has.” The audience then hears a newscaster saying, “A felony. Jacobs faces up to four years in prison.”
The commercial then compares Jacobs to Collins, who resigned last year before pleading guilty to charges related to insider trading, saying, “Chris Jacobs: We already lost one congressman to prison, we don’t need another.” The rest of the spot then promotes Parlato as the “Trump candidate,” even though Trump himself has endorsed Jacobs.
The complaint accuses Jacobs, who announced last year that he was moving from Buffalo in the 26th District to Orchard Park in the 27th, of improperly voting from Orchard Park. Jacobs allegedly broke the law both by registering to vote at his new address before he closed on his home and by voting in Orchard Park in November even though he had not yet met the 30-day residency requirement.
Greber also obtained documents from the complaint attesting that, even though Jacobs filed documents with federal election officials in March saying Orchard Park was his primary home, neighbors signed affidavits on June 15 saying that he still mainly lived in his old Buffalo residence. It is not clear who filed the complaint.
All the Erie County district attorney’s office has said about this story so far is, “We received a complaint and we are reviewing it.” For his part, Jacobs responded by insisting, “My wife and I went under contract to purchase our home in Orchard Park on June 17th of 2019 and closed on our home on September 30 of 2019.”
Greber said that he recently visited the Orchard Park house for his investigation and was invited inside by the candidate’s wife. Greber reported that the “home appeared largely vacant … It appeared as if someone was in the process of moving, a process that was supposed to begin early this year but had been stalled by the coronavirus pandemic.”
P.S. While Parlato’s commercial declared that the district has “lost one congressman to prison,” Collins has not yet begun his 26-month sentence. The disgraced congressman was originally told to surrender to the authorities in mid-March, but he’s repeatedly been granted an extension because of the pandemic. In early June, a judge pushed the date to Aug. 18.