The only Russian-speaking candidate for mayor of New York dropped out of the race

The only Russian-speaking candidate for mayor New York City Vitaly Filipchenko dropped out of the race. The election commission of the metropolis has declared some of the signatures it collected from voters invalid, and now he lacks signatures to put his name on the ballot paper. Details told RIA News.

Filipchenko moved to USA more than ten years ago, received citizenship, owns a trucking company in New York.

In the mayoral election of New York Vitaly was nominated as an independent candidate, that is, he should not have participated in the primaries, which took place on June 22. He needed to collect 2250 signatures from voters registered in the city in order to get on the ballot papers during the main voting, which will take place on November 2.

Filipchenko collected them and presented them to the commission, but some of the signatures were eventually invalidated due to minor errors.

“I walked as an independent candidate. First, I collected the required number of signatures. They sent me a letter stating that I was in the newsletter, everything is in order. Then, two weeks later, they sent me a letter stating that my name had been translated into Chinese, because there are many Chinese people who cannot read English. And a week later they sent a letter stating that they had counted the signatures and some of them turned out to be invalid, ”Filipchenko said.

According to him, various minor flaws became the reason for such a decision of the commission.

“Somewhere there was no code, somewhere the exact address. And they said that now I do not have enough signatures to include me on the ballot, ”explained Vitaly.

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Filipchenko did not rule out that he would continue his political career, but now he considers it premature to talk about more specific plans.

According to the preliminary results of the primaries, Brooklyn President Eric Adams is leading among the Democrats. The top three also include former New York City Sanitation Director Catherine Garcia and former legal adviser to incumbent New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Maya Wiley. Former US presidential candidate Andrew Young admitted that he would not win the primaries and abandoned the race.

Unlike the Democratic primaries, where 13 candidates are vying, only two candidates participated in the Republican preliminary ballot. The founder of the volunteer organization Guardian Angels Curtis Sliva, according to preliminary estimates, defeats businessman Fernando Mateo.

The final results of the voting may be summed up until mid-July, the delay in counting is due to the use of a new voting system - rating, when voters ranked candidates according to their preferences, and not just put a tick in front of the only one they liked the most.