Democrats file complaint against Bruce Blakeman over campaign finance reports

ALBANY — The chair of the state Democratic Party filed a complaint Wednesday asking the state Public Campaign Finance Board to withhold future payments to Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman's gubernatorial campaign over concerns with his finance reports.

Among the problems cited by Jay Jacobs were thousands of duplicated contributions, first reported by Newsday, where the same person was listed as giving the same contribution multiple times on the same day. The total from the possible duplicate contributions is over $460,000, according to the report filed Friday. If the contributions were only counted once, the total from that pool of donors would be about $168,000.

"Unless the filings are corrected and verified, the public cannot have confidence that a single additional taxpayer dollar is being paid out lawfully," the Democratic chairman wrote. He also asked the Board of Elections’s Division of Election Law Enforcement to open an investigation into Blakeman’s filings.

A spokeswoman for Blakeman's campaign said the complaint was a continuation of Democratic efforts to stop him from accessing the state's matching funds program.

Blakeman successfully sued the state Board of Elections and the Public Campaign Finance Board earlier this year after he was barred from the program over a paperwork issue.

"Kathy Hochul already tried to illegally block our matching funds once, and a judge stopped her. Now, with our ads exposing her tax and utility hikes, she’s trying again," spokeswoman Madison Spanodemos said.

Blakeman’s campaign said the incorrect filing was caused by the state Board of Elections requiring the campaign to split its report into multiple files, causing some contributions to appear multiple times.

Spanodemos said the campaign would file a corrected report.

Jacobs, citing reporting by Newsday and other outlets on problems with Blakeman’s campaign finance reports, also requested the Public Campaign Finance Board not release any further funds until every pending and past claim had been verified.

The report covered contributions made between mid-July and late September. Blakeman reported having just $178,000 on hand and having spent more than $10.4 million. On Monday, Blakeman’s campaign received $1.1 million from the state’s matching funds program, bringing him to the program’s limit for candidates running for governor of $3.5 million.

Last month, New York Focus reported Blakeman’s campaign requested public matching funds for contributions from out of state donors or exceeding the contribution ceiling for public funds.

The state public matching funds program gives candidates for a governor a 6-to-1 match on donations between $5 and $250.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, the Democratic nominee, is not participating in the program.

Hochul has $18.5 million in cash on hand.