My name is Cara Castronuova, and I am an investigative journalist currently embroiled in a contentious legal battle with the Board of Elections and the New York State Republican Party as a candidate for United States Senate. 

Republican Party leadership and a Board of Elections representative took me and multiple other candidates to election court to have us “thrown off the ballot” and stymied a Republican primary this year. There were no primaries on Primary Day! Your right to vote was subverted and a single Republican primary ballot did not exist, except for one in Queens District 25, and one in faraway Yates County.

The Uniparty has been doing this for decades, completely under the radar. Not anymore. I am fighting back hard and suing them in Federal Court. These nefarious forces spent months and a fortune to throw me off the ballot. They hate candidates they cannot control like a puppet on a string and will fight at all costs to have them removed.

My journey to fight for ballot access has revealed a fundamental failure in our system that explains why New York is in dire straits. It is because New York State’s election laws are the most draconian in the nation and designed to prevent ordinary citizens from running for public office and fighting for the people. THAT IS WHY NEW YORK IS FAILING. Our politicians are NOT elected by the People, as our Founding Father’s Constitution and God intended. 

“…..President Trump said right after he was shot, we must FIGHT for a future where the will of the people prevails over the interests of a select few.” 

The only way to get on the ballot to run for Senate in New York State is 1) gathering over 15,000 signatures from registered Republicans around the state in 35 days or 2) kiss the filthy ring of the establishment and get their backing.

I decided to go through the people to gain ballot access to win a Republican primary and challenge Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in November. My campaign did what many thought would be impossible and gathered 15,800 signatures in one month’s time through the hard work and sweat of hundreds of grassroots volunteers from all over New York State.

We accomplished this without spending a dime, unlike establishment politicians who typically spend millions to pay petition walkers.

We made the ballot. We were on our way to easily beating the establishment party hack pick. Then the Republican Party and their minions at the Board of Elections stepped in and subverted democracy by using lawfare against voters of their own party to keep their coronated candidate from facing a challenger.

Republican leadership used high-end attorneys to take my campaign to court to disqualify us over arbitrary technicalities. They spit in the face of the 16,000 people who signed my petitions and all the sweat and blood they poured into the effort. They defied millions of voters who wanted a choice in a primary.

New York’s arbitrary election laws protect the interests of party elites and keep establishment politicians in office at the expense of the rest of us. These laws are designed to disenfranchise voters, disqualify their signatures on candidate petitions for “technicalities,” and defy the will of the people. Furthermore, these unconstitutional “laws” are literally drafted by the very people they protect—the diabolical Uniparty.

One example of many: if a voter signs a petition and in the box that asks for their county, they write “Staten Island” or “Brooklyn,” their signature will be disqualified because they did not write “Richmond County” or “Kings County.” This is referred to as the Town/City/County trap and was deemed unconstitutional in the past. If enough signers fall for “traps” like abbreviating a street name or crossing out a date and forgetting to initial, the corrupt party can get the number of signatures under 15,000 and therefore have a candidate “thrown off” the ballot.

New York’s draconian ballot access laws make it nearly impossible for regular people like you and me to challenge these entrenched powers. If you don’t have millions of dollars or the backing of the UNELECTED party establishment by trading in what you stand for, your chances of becoming a political contender are slim to none. This system is a betrayal of the founding fathers’ vision of a Constitutional Republic where regular people can run for office and the public can choose from multiple candidates. Our founders fought to escape the rule of coronated candidates like King George III, not to perpetuate it with modern-day monarchs.

Unelected Republican and Democrat party leaders use their minions (Board of Elections workers appointed by the parties) as plaintiffs in court to disqualify candidates who have gathered signatures from the people. The NYS Board of Elections is staffed by 50% Democrats and 50% Republicans in “patronage jobs” that collude with their masters in the Uniparty to tamper with our elections through lawfare.

Leaders from both parties work together, election cycle after election cycle, to subvert the will of the people and eliminate competition. Judges often appointed or endorsed by the Uniparty side with the establishment to maintain their positions. Meanwhile, Mike Sapraicone, the party’s coronated candidate and a donor to Letitia James, did not have to gather a single signature. He benefited from New York’s unconstitutional election laws, crafted by party bosses designed to keep their competition off the ballot and subvert our Constitutional Republic.

This subversion of democracy will continue unless it is stopped. For decades, voters have been robbed of their choice in primaries and don’t even know it. Dozens of candidates this year, and many more in previous election cycles, collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, only to be disqualified by the Board of Elections or the election courts. This entity is corrupt beyond measure. I have receipts, trust me.

This is a systematic problem that disenfranchises millions of voters and is literally toppling our constitutional republic.

Because unelected party leaders handpick our candidates, fund them, and use the party machine to get them elected, these politicians are forever slaves to these corrupt leaders who put them in power.

THEY CAN NEVER SERVE THE PEOPLE WITH THIS RIDICULOUS CONFLICT OF INTEREST.

We must break this system and find a way to run multiple candidates in both parties that are indebted to WE THE PEOPLE and can freely share their platforms and ideas.

My campaign is now in federal court in the Eastern District of New York, suing for ballot access. Our goal is to change these unconstitutional laws so that future “regular people” candidates can get on the ballot and let the people decide who represents them, as the founding fathers intended. We the people should choose our representatives—not a few unelected men in a backroom. They have been spitting in the face of their own voters and exploiting us for their own greed.

Brave voters from the Queens Village Republican Club are also involved in a voter disenfranchisement lawsuit. These voters supported me and are now suing the corrupt Board of Elections and Republican Party leadership for taking away their right to vote when I was removed from the ballot, canceling the primary. There was not even an opportunity for them to write me in, despite a federal judge’s order. Judge Ramon Reyes in the Eastern District of New York has ordered the Board of Elections to hold the certification of the party puppet candidate as our case continues. These cases, Schmitt et al. v. New York State Board of Elections et al. and Castronuova v. Cox et al., are critical in our fight for democracy.

This battle is not just about my candidacy; it is about restoring democracy and ensuring that every New Yorker has the right to choose their representatives. It is about dismantling a corrupt system that benefits a few at the expense of the many. Like President Trump said right after he was shot, we must FIGHT for a future where the will of the people prevails over the interests of a select few. 

The Declaration of Independence states that people have God-given rights and that a government that becomes tyrannical can be altered or abolished.

It is time to abolish the tyrannical leadership of both parties in New York State. Pray for our victory in chipping away at the unconstitutional ballot access laws that the Republican Party leadership has exploited for decades alongside their pals in the Democrat party. 

Remember, in the end God wins.