Picture-Illustration: Intelligencer; Pictures: Getty
The candidate spoke little English and hadn’t run a marketing campaign. She wasn’t a widely known determine round city. No occasion had endorsed her. And but in some way, this previous November, 83-year-old Maria Delgado gained 1,219 votes on the Working Households Social gathering ticket within the town-supervisor election in Huntington, a sprawling Lengthy Island suburb 40 miles east of Manhattan in Suffolk County.
In years previous, nobody might need seen or cared. However in 2025, the race was unusually shut. Democrat Cooper Macco overperformed, benefiting from an across-the-board spike in enthusiasm for Democratic candidates and controversies round improvement tasks spearheaded by the Republican incumbent, Edmund Smyth. When the mud settled, Macco had misplaced by solely 418 votes. The skinny margin led reporters to concentrate on the doubtless decisive function performed by Delgado. In New York, the WFP — a 3rd occasion based by labor unions and progressives within the late Nineties — normally cross-endorses Democrats normally elections to keep away from working spoilers. And the occasion had endorsed Macco. However Delgado, an unknown grandmother, wound up on the WFP poll line anyway. Why hadn’t she dropped out?
Every week after the election, Newsday discovered Delgado exterior her dwelling. When the reporter informed Delgado her title had appeared on the poll, the 83-year-old burst into laughter. She had “no concept” about any of it, she stated. The reporter knowledgeable Delgado of the vote tallies, and he or she laughed even tougher.
From there, the story unfold like wildfire. The New York Submit and Individuals ran feverish articles in regards to the “Lengthy Island grandma” who unknowingly upended an election. Extra reporters got here to Delgado’s door. As a substitute of discovering a diminutive gray-haired lady with glasses, they have been greeted by tight-lipped strangers. An unidentified man exterior Delgado’s home informed News12 she didn’t dwell there. A special unidentified man intercepted CBS Information within the driveway, saying, “She ran, she misplaced, and I’m pleased with her. We’re pleased with her. No remark.”
At each flip, the thriller of Delgado’s candidacy appeared to deepen. (The truth that her voting data confirmed she had voted in each the first and the overall, as an illustration, forged some suspicion on her declare that she didn’t find out about her personal candidacy.) However to anybody entrenched in native politics anyplace within the state of New York, the story regarded like an instance of a slimy however technically authorized observe often known as “poll raiding.”
Anybody can enroll as a WFP member, persuade others of their neighborhood to do the identical, and power a candidate of their alternative by the first on the WFP poll line. Within the normal election, this Manchurian WFP candidate doesn’t again out and is used as a spoiler, duping progressives and others into losing their votes. Up to now, this form of deception was simply a part of the darkish arts of native politics throughout New York. Voters, in the event that they have been even conscious of it, principally sighed and moved on. However the Huntington scheme final yr might have really altered the result of an election for the most important job in a 204,000-person city — and locals have been pissed. “Certainly, the integrity of our election was undermined,” stated Quinn Dell, a neighborhood Democrat and mother whose public anger made her an unofficial spokesperson for alarmed voters after the election.
Satisfied the Delgado thriller was simply the tip of the iceberg, Dell and others organized in Fb teams. They assigned themselves duties — alerting information channels, calling city officers to demand solutions. Who was behind this? Why did nobody in energy intervene previous to the election? And why ought to they need to faux poll raiding was regular? The sleuths — principally Democrats however some Republicans, too — pored over paperwork, together with the petitions that received Delgado on the poll within the first place. “There’s questions for everybody,” stated Dell. “And there could also be lots of people concerned.”
Even on the native degree, election manipulation requires many energetic individuals with every taking part in out a private negotiation: Is that this unsuitable, or is that this simply how the sport is performed? The Huntington state of affairs reveals what occurs when sufficient individuals blur the traces of their heads between gamesmanship and breaking democracy. Because the sleuths dug, they realized the poll raiding was a symptom of a deeper rot of their native politics, and so they shortly confirmed a rumor making its method round city: Most people behind Delgado’s candidacy have been linked, in a method or one other, to the identical volunteer fireplace division.
In cities like Huntington, the place native politics typically operates by phrase of mouth, municipal workers can function energy brokers. In a town-council race, as an illustration, residents questioning who they need to vote for may merely pose that query to a good friend who works for the city — somebody who’s not a politician however understands native paperwork. In Huntington, few have accrued extra behind-the-scenes energy by that sport than Michael Pastore, a stocky, gregarious volunteer fire-department commissioner.
Pastore grew up in Huntington within the ’80s, when it was already established as a rich commuter city with wooded suburban enclaves. He’s all the time belonged to the category of people that dwell and work in Huntington, making it perform for metropolis employees — his mother, Billie Pastore, served on the Huntington and Suffolk County Republican Committees and labored for Frank Petrone, a beloved Republican turned Democrat who served as Huntington’s city supervisor for twenty-four years. Pastore noticed the work of presidency up shut. He first appeared in town’s payroll in 1986, when he was two years out of highschool. He’s since labored for the city in varied capacities, from a profitable gig as a parking-meter officer ($152,591 in 2020, together with time beyond regulation pay) to his latest one as an emergency coordinator. In 1985, he joined one other civic establishment: the volunteer Huntington Manor Hearth Division. Over the many years, he climbed the ranks.
In 2003, when Pastore was in his late 30s, he did one thing peculiar: He modified his voter registration from Republican to WFP. Over the subsequent 20 years, scores of individuals in Pastore’s orbit additionally registered as WFP, in line with voter-registration data. Relations, neighbors, fellow firefighters, and the households of fellow firefighters all grew to become card-carrying WFP members. On paper, this created the unlikely picture of a Lengthy Island firehouse chock-full of die-hard progressives. In actuality, in line with two Huntington politicians and a supply with inside information of the firehouse, Pastore’s WFP machinations allowed him to regulate an impactful voting bloc.
Over time, Pastore’s shadow chapter has supported whichever candidates he informed them to, in line with two political insiders. “Individuals who perceive politics right here know they need to go kiss his ring to activate his universe of voters,” one of many insiders informed me. “He’s form of the native capo.” (Pastore didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.)
Whereas the state WFP has by no means considered Pastore as a respectable chief — he’s a “faux,” one occasion official informed me — it hasn’t disenrolled him as a member, which might contain a sluggish and dear course of. “If we begin disenrollment hearings and go to Lengthy Island, he’d be on the prime of the listing,” the official stated. However for WFP leaders throughout the state, there’s a way that these schemes are an inherent characteristic of politics in counties like Rensselaer, Rockland, and Suffolk, the place the occasion has low enrollment and its everlasting poll line — which is essential to the mounting affect the small occasion wields in additional progressive-dense locations like New York Metropolis — could be a vulnerability. This isn’t even the primary time the ballot-raiding technique has been tried in Huntington. In 2021, a slate of candidates who hijacked the WFP line turned out to have shut private ties to City Supervisor Smyth. Not less than one individual was given a city job inside every week of amassing signatures for the ghost candidates, in line with Newsday. Whereas Smyth has denied information of the 2021 scheme, Mark Cuthbertson, who was then a Democratic city councilman, stated on the time, “The optics of this stink.”
As a substitute of disenrollment, the occasion’s resolution is commonly to recruit extra precise WFP members in these cities, making the poll line harder to hijack. However given the sparse WFP infrastructure in counties like Suffolk, the majority of that burden typically falls to whichever passionate residents really feel like stepping up — of us like Phil Dalton, a Hofstra professor, WFP voter, and progressive organizer. “I wouldn’t say there’s a sport plan,” he stated of the occasion’s organizing technique for Huntington. “I believe I’m the sport plan.”
With out the specter of disenrollment and solely a small variety of honest progressives on the town to compete with, Pastore has operated with ease over time. A supply with inside information of the firehouse described a system wherein “crew gamers” who register themselves and their households as WFP and assist with Pastore-assigned duties appear to finish up with city jobs. That six-figure parking-meter gig that Pastore used to have? City data present it now belongs to HMFD firefighter Mark Sciallo. Sciallo’s members of the family are registered as WFP, together with his practically 90-year-old mother and father. (In Fb feedback, Sciallo has referred to Huntington residents upset in regards to the poll raiding as “libtards” seemingly affected by “TDS.” He didn’t reply to an interview request.) “You don’t have to be a mastermind” to drag this off, stated Dalton, calling Pastore’s operation an open secret. “The WFP let this lie there till any individual with an oz. of ambition and creativity walked alongside and scooped it up.”
When Dell and her fellow Fb investigators dug up the petitions that had gotten Delgado on the poll, they discovered Pastore had collected many of the signatures. The signees included firefighters, members of the family of firefighters, city workers, and — the supply with information of the firehouse stated — individuals who wish to change into city workers. And Pastore & Co. didn’t simply acquire petition signatures to run one random 83-year-old lady for city supervisor, both — they ran a whole slate of 4 candidates up and down the poll, together with two for city council and one other for freeway superintendent. “Why was this allowed to occur, and why has there been resistance to transparency?” Dell requested. “These usually are not partisan questions. These are democratic questions.” The opposite candidates have been simply as mysterious to Huntington voters as Delgado. “Who’re they?” requested Dell. “And the place are they?”
Native Republicans have insisted nothing is amiss, and City Supervisor Smyth stated little when voters confirmed up at a city board assembly in November to problem the legitimacy of the election. “The reality is simple: Members of the Working Households Social gathering chosen their very own slate of candidates as an alternative of the Democrats’ most well-liked selections,” Huntington GOP chairman Thomas McNally informed the Submit on the time. “What we’re seeing now’s post-election spin and bitter grapes.”
Whereas Republicans tried to maneuver on, the story continued to snowball. In native reporting on Pastore and Delgado, the ragtag band of Fb investigators seen somebody dancing across the periphery: Cristian Alfaro. A paint-shop crew chief for the city’s Freeway Division (he made $137,000 in 2024, together with over $30,000 in time beyond regulation), Alfaro additionally serves as a vice-chair in town’s Democratic committee. In early 2025, Alfaro had a gathering with City Supervisor Smyth, in line with a former city official. The 2 usually are not recognized associates and don’t meet about his work for the city as a paint-shop crew chief, in line with Alfaro’s colleague on the Democratic committee. (In response to a number of interview requests, Smyth’s spokesperson wrote, “The supervisor has moved on from the election and is busy governing the City of Huntington.”)
To Huntington politicos, Alfaro is named one thing of a fixer — or, in much less sort phrases, a “baby-faced monster” whom you name once you want an issue solved, to cite one insider. Regardless of being on the Democratic committee, Alfaro has lengthy been related to a distinguished city Republican — his present boss, Freeway Superintendent Andre Sorrentino (whose division additionally employs Pastore’s daughter). “Alfaro desires to be indispensable to individuals in energy,” the insider stated. “They depend on him.”
Earlier than the primaries final June, Alfaro got here to the Democratic committee with a request: Don’t endorse a Democratic candidate for freeway superintendent within the race in opposition to Sorrentino. After the committee rejected the proposal and backed its personal candidate, Alfaro put collectively a whole slate of candidates for the WFP line, in line with the Northport Observer. (One committee member characterised the transfer to me as a potential revenge scheme.) Pastore then rallied his shadow WFP behind the candidates. When the Observer confronted Alfaro about this, he stated, “I’ve no clue. You certain it’s me, Cristian Alfaro? Possibly somebody’s messing with you.” (Alfaro didn’t reply to an interview request.)
As for the way Delgado got here to be concerned in all this, three Huntington political insiders inform me she knew Cristian Alfaro as a child and should have walked him to the bus within the morning. And whether or not or not she knew the ins and outs of this scheme, Delgado appears to have been working an analogous angle to many others on this story: A supply informed CBS Information that somebody in her household was promised a city job.
The thought of political operatives hijacking poll traces all around the state may conjure photos of cigar-smoke-filled backrooms, however the Delgado saga illustrates how these schemes begin small and play out in extraordinary communities the place the lofty beliefs of the WFP crash right into a buzzsaw of handshake offers, private loyalties, and impressive firefighters. Even the place the stakes of the sport appear low — the result of a town-supervisor election, or the power to get your self and others in town payroll — politics are distorted by these keen to use the loopholes at their disposal. “If there are channels to energy, like water, individuals are going to search out them,” says Dalton, the Huntington WFP member and professor of rhetoric at Hofstra. “They’ll discover the crags.”
On the finish of 2025, Governor Kathy Hochul signed a legislation aimed toward stopping the WFP hijackings for good. Not like different events, the WFP doesn’t have county-level committees that may maintain hearings and disenroll candidates “not in sympathy” with the rules of the occasion forward of a major. The brand new legislation will allow the occasion’s state-level infrastructure to render these judgments and boot insincere candidates off its poll line. Lawyer Normal Letitia James’s workplace, in the meantime, has been wanting into the hijacking complaints in Huntington since November — and lately took the step of opening a proper investigation, in line with a member of James’s crew. Pastore’s lawyer lately informed Newsday that James’s workplace contacted Pastore concerning his “function” within the incident, and that Pastore is “cooperating” with the investigation. And after six months of ducking the press, Pastore himself claimed in the identical article that he was “duped” into the hijacking by a “trusted member” of the Democratic committee (whom his lawyer recognized as Alfaro) and that he by no means questioned the legitimacy of Delgado’s candidacy as a result of her title was well-known in Huntington. (It wasn’t — however it’s now.)
Whether or not or not Hochul’s legislation completely fixes the problem or James digs something up, the scandal has left an enduring mark on Huntington. It turned neighbors into partisans in a heated feud and introduced nationwide scrutiny to a Lengthy Island firefighter coterie of on-paper leftists, a fixer, and a supposedly befuddled grandma, exposing the rifts in Huntington politics within the course of. And amid a nationwide debate over election integrity, it revealed what an precise election hijacking appears like — not an unlimited conspiracy by an unnamed them who tamper with voting machines to undermine President Donald Trump however a small-time ecosystem of entrenched energy brokers who bend the principles of native political processes so typically that it’s change into routine. Within the wake of the Delgado story, the contentious back-and-forths over what democracy actually means has gotten Huntington residents like Dell off the sidelines of native authorities and into the combination, the place they really feel they will seize some management again from the maelstrom of recent politics.
“I’ll let you know these shenanigans usually are not going to work once more,” Dell stated. “We’re checking the traces. There’s numerous eyes, and lots of people who really feel they’ve been duped.”
