Post about noncitizen voting for Mamdani was a joke

"This is exactly how elections are stolen," said Alexander Duncan (archived here), who is running for US Senate out of Texas in 2026, in a November 4, 2025 post on X.

"This man is openly bragging about how he arrived in NYC two days ago and is not a resident or citizen, yet he was able to still go cast a vote for jihadi Mamdani."

Duncan was commenting on a post from an X account called "@YazanXBT," which shared a photo of a ballot and wrote: "Arrived in NYC 2 days ago. I'm not a U.S. citizen or even a resident. I was able to get in and vote early. All what they needed was an address so I gave them one. Voted for Mamdani."

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Screenshot from X taken November 5, 2025

Mamdani, a 34-year-old self-described socialist, became the city's first Muslim mayor after broadcasters projected him the winner over former state governor Andrew Cuomo.

Duncan's post was promoted repeatedly after the announcement of Mamdani's victory within the so-called "Election Integrity Community" on X, a group launched by billionaire Elon Musk's super PAC ahead of the 2024 election to crowdsource "potential instances of voter fraud and irregularities."

"Illegal alien voted in NYC," wrote one member of the group.

Disinformation about noncitizens voting previously plagued the 2024 presidential election. But the post from @YazanXBT was a joke, the user himself said in a subsequent post (archived here).

"This is a joke BTW. This is where I took the picture from," the account wrote, sharing an October 29 post from another user sharing a photo of their ballot filled out for Mamdani (archived here). "Anyone doubting the legitimacy of the elections is a moron."

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Screenshot from X taken November 5, 2025

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Screenshot from X taken November 5, 2025

That user acknowledged in the response to @YazanXBT's posts that the photo showed "my ballot" and later commented that supporters of US President Donald Trump "really will believe anything" (archived here and here).

In a taunting reply to Duncan, @YazanXBT wrote that the candidate had been "ragebaited" (archived here).

Election safeguards

To register to vote in New York City, a person must be a US citizen, a resident of the city for at least 30 days, and 18 years old on or before Election Day, according to the city's board of elections (archived here).

Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, told AFP in a November 4 interview that the city's election administrators follow an "unbelievably detailed checklist of steps" to safeguard elections (archived here).

At polling places in the city, for example, residents sign an electronic poll book of registered voters in order to receive their ballot (archived here).

"It immediately updates the database -- the voter rolls -- that you have appeared and voted," Lerner said.

Lerner said voters who request absentee ballots get added to a list that bars them from voting another time in-person (archived here).

If someone who does not appear in the poll book arrives at a polling place claiming they should be registered or that they never received an absentee ballot, they can submit an affidavit ballot, which is then audited following Election Day to determine whether the voter was eligible (archived here).

Each party in New York City can send poll watchers to oversee the election (archived here).

The conservative Heritage Foundation, which tracks cases of election fraud, has identified 25 total criminal convictions for election-related offenses in the state of New York since 1982 (archived here).

AFP debunked other misinformation about the 2025 US elections here, here and here.