In what’s being called voter interference, a Chinese-language interpreter at a polling site in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, took a voter’s ballot and voted for them against their wishes.
That’s according to City Council member Susan Zhuang who has reported the incident to the New York City Board of Elections.
According to Zhuang, at around 11 a.m. Sunday during early voting at the Boro Park Jewish Community Council Community Center, a Chinese-language interpreter filled out a ballot for a Chinese-speaking senior voter who was seeking help filling out her ballot.
The interpreter then allegedly filled out the ballot inside a voting booth without the voter present, leaving the voter unable to see the candidates selected. Despite the voter having said she wanted to vote for Democrats, the interpreter selected Republican candidates, according to Zhuang’s complaint and a video statement from the voter.
Zhuang said she had accompanied her constituent, a senior voter who does not speak English, to the polling site after the voter said she was unsure how to find her voting station.
After noticing what had happened, Zhuang said she and the voter confronted the interpreter and asked to review the ballot to make sure the correct candidates had been selected.
“What shocked us was that the interpreter selected all the Republican candidates instead,” Zhuang told Documented.
The voter, whom Zhuang asked not to name for privacy but whose identity Documented confirmed, immediately asked to cancel the ballot filled out by the interpreter. In addition to filing a complaint with the New York City Board of Elections, Zhuang also reported the incident to the polling-site coordinator.
The coordinator reassigned the interpreter to the information desk and suggested it might have been a “misunderstanding.”
“It is not a misunderstanding, it is cheating!” said Zhuang, who described the incident as “extremely disturbing” and noted that it happened right in front of her.
“It was quite bold. She even did it under my watch,” Zhuang told Documented. “What occurred raises serious concerns about voter interference, abuse of authority, and the integrity of our electoral process.”
In a video reviewed by Documented, the voter recounted what had happened after she and Zhuang left the polling site.
“I wanted to vote for the Democratic Party… she [the interpreter] filled in Republican candidates for me,” the voter said in Cantonese. When Zhuang asked whether that was proper, the voter replied, “Of course it’s not OK.”
As of publication, Documented had been unable to reach the interpreter for comment. Zhuang said the interpreter denied changing the voter’s selections, saying she had filled out the ballot according to the voter’s instructions.
In a written complaint to the New York City Board of Elections, Zhuang called the incident “an outrageous breach of trust” and said it raised concerns about potential unlawful interference with a voter’s fundamental rights.
“An interpreter’s responsibility is to help voters understand and exercise their rights — not to take control of their ballots, make political choices on their behalf, or substitute personal preferences for the voter’s own decisions,” she wrote in the complaint.
Vincent M. Ignizio, a Republican former City Council member and deputy executive director of the Board of Elections since 2021, confirmed that the board had received a complaint from Zhuang and said it would review the matter, including gathering statements from relevant parties. Ignizio said the board had not received similar complaints city-wide, and that additional information would not be available until after the election.
In her complaint, Zhuang called on the Board of Elections to immediately remove the interpreter from election duties, conduct a formal investigation and consider a criminal referral. She also urged the board to identify other voters who may have been affected, retrain election interpreters and review polling-site management procedures.
Zhuang told Documented that she also wants to pursue legislation to strengthen oversight of polling sites and prevent election workers found to have violated election laws or interfered with voters from taking on similar government or election-related roles in the future.
The incident has also circulated in several WeChat groups created by some Bensonhurst residents, prompting discussion among community members. One group member criticized the alleged actions, saying in Chinese: “Voting should be fair, and every voter’s choice must be respected. If someone had changed a vote from Republican to Democratic, I would criticize that just as strongly.”
