16 Voters Targeted by Police Checks in Pelham Manor
Detectives visited homes of 16 residents at the request of the Board of Elections, following challenges filed by a local Democrat who lost recent races.
By David Almasi ·
Pelham Manor Police Department detectives conducted residency checks at the homes of 16 local voters on Friday, October 23. The visits occurred 11 days before the general election. The Westchester County Board of Elections requested the investigation after receiving challenge affidavits.
Official records obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request show that Mark Cardwell filed all 16 affidavits. Cardwell is a local Democrat who lost the Pelham Manor mayoral election in 2025 and the trustee election in March 2024. In the affidavits, he cited his own personal knowledge under oath to support the challenges. None of the 16 individuals targeted in this round of checks are registered Democrats.
New York Election Law Section 5-702 requires the Board of Elections to forward such challenges to local police for investigation within five days. Cardwell’s filing triggered this statutory process, sending officers to neighbors’ front doors to verify living arrangements. Residents told investigators that they had never met or spoken to Cardwell, despite his sworn claims of personal knowledge regarding their residency.
Cardwell previously criticized the local police force during his mayoral campaign. He described the department as handicapped and cited stubborn safety problems, chaotic streets, and nuisance crimes such as car and ATM thefts. His filing required highly compensated detectives to leave their primary public safety duties to perform these residency checks.
This is the second time in two years that Pelham Manor residents have faced police visits related to election challenges. In October 2024, armed officers from the Westchester County District Attorney’s office visited homes, including those of sitting Trustees Tim Case and Breda Bennett, to investigate absentee ballots from the March 2024 election. In that instance, no targeted individual was a registered Democrat. One resident reported falling to her knees in tears upon seeing officers at her door, fearing they had brought news of a family tragedy.
Earlier in 2024, absentee ballot challenges were filed during the Board of Education election by Katherine Pringle, Melissa Labonte, and Town Councilwoman Maura Curtin. All three had lost the 2024 Pelham Manor Trustee election. They submitted screenshots of social media pages and minor league baseball statistics as evidence of handwriting discrepancies or residency issues. Almost all challenged ballots in that cycle belonged to non-Democrats.
State law permits voters with dual residences to choose where they register, provided they maintain legitimate, significant, and continuing attachments to that location. The Pelham Manor population is approximately 5,500 people. The latest police visits concluded the statutory five-day investigation window required by the Board of Elections.
