David Siffert Wins Primary Election for Assembly District 66

Huge congrats to David Siffert for winning the recount in the Democratic primary for New York State Assembly District 66! I had the pleasure of meeting and photographing Siffert at multiple rallies and protests during the primary, and they always struck me as a serious, sharp public servant on the right side of all the issues I heard them talk about.

Also incredibly worth noting — Siffert won by FIFTEEN VOTES. It’s a cliche, but it’s absolutely true: every single vote counts, friends.

Press release from the campaign below.

**David Siffert Wins Primary Election for Assembly District 66**

(New York, NY) David Siffert will be the Democratic nominee for Assembly District 66 after the Board of Elections conducted a two-day manual recount and the opposing campaign dropped a lawsuit. As of the night of the election, preliminary results had Siffert trailing Jeannine Kiely by 56 votes. This total excluded affidavit ballots, late-arriving mail ballots, cured mail ballots, and data from one polling place that failed to transfer on election night due to a data error. After all votes were counted by the Board of Elections, Siffert led Kiely by 15 votes, triggering an automatic manual recount, and Kiely filed a lawsuit to preserve the ability to challenge ballots at the recount. At the conclusion of the recount, on Tuesday, July 14, Siffert continued to hold a 15 vote lead. On Wednesday, July 15, the parties appeared before the court, and Kiely withdrew the lawsuit and conceded the race.

“It’s the honor of a lifetime to be the Democratic nominee to represent Assembly District 66. This community has been my home for 20 years, and it’s my favorite place in the world. The best part of this campaign has been getting to know so many of my community members, and I’m consistently blown away by their passion, engagement, kindness, and values,” David Siffert said. “With a margin of 15 votes, this victory is due to more people that I can thank in a statement, but I want to thank everyone who believed in this campaign and helped in any way – we would not have won without each and every one of you. And I want to thank everyone in Assembly District 66, whether they supported me or not, for being positively engaged in such an important process. I particularly want to thank all the other candidates in this race. I am so grateful to have been able to run in a race where I legitimately liked all the candidates, and where the community had so many wonderful choices of qualified people who were dedicated to making our community better. I specifically want to thank and acknowledge Jeannine Kiely, who has done and will continue to do so much important and positive work for our community. I have an enormous amount of respect for everything she has done, for everything she will do, and for her as a human being. The district is incredibly lucky to have her, and I am honored to have been able to run in this race with her.”

About David Siffert: David Siffert is a civil rights lawyer, law professor, community leader, and life-long Manhattanite. David’s extensive civil rights experience includes their work as Legal Director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), an anti-mass surveillance non-profit, where they led S.T.O.P.’s work on both litigation and legislation. They teach about the New York State legislature at NYU School of Law, training the next generation of lawyers to defend New Yorkers’ rights and create sound public policy, and they are the founding Executive Director of NYU’s State Government Initiative. David’s community leadership includes running business canvasses in the West Village to prepare them for how to respond to ICE raids, working as counsel in Community Coalition to Save Beth Israel Hospital, and serving for nearly a decade on the Executive Committee of the Village Independent Democrats.David would be the first openly non-binary person elected to New York State’s government.

For more information, visit www.siffertforassembly.com or follow @SiffertForNY on social media.

And here are a few of the photos I took of Siffert during the campaign: