- In early June 2025, videos online claimed a lawsuit was challenging the results of the 2024 general election in Rockland County, New York, with some people suggesting it could have ripple effects across the country.
- An advocacy group, a U.S. Senate candidate and two voters in Rockland County did file a lawsuit against the county’s Board of Elections, questioning the accuracy of the county’s 2024 general election results. The lawsuit cited “anomalies” in the county’s election results.
- However, the lawsuit does not serve as definitive evidence of election interference or wrongdoing, as some online posts suggest. When it comes to some of the election data in Rockland County, there’s a straightforward explanation that has to do with voter demographics, a New York elections data expert told Snopes.
In early June 2025, videos (archived) that circulated on TikTok (archived) claimed a lawsuit was challenging the results of the 2024 general election in Rockland County, New York, with one user saying the county was at “the center of a massive election integrity case” and others suggesting it could have ripple effects across the country.
One TikTok user said in part:
Did you know Rockland County, New York, is at the center of a massive election integrity case and barely anyone’s talking about it? A lawsuit was filed challenging the 2024 presidential and U.S. Senate election results because in several districts, Kamala Harris allegedly received zero votes – that’s right, zero – even in areas where Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand won by a landslide.
And that’s not all. Multiple voters signed affidavits saying that they voted for independent Senate candidate Diane Sare, but somehow there were fewer voters’ votes reported than affidavits that were submitted.
A judge allegedly ordered discovery in the case, meaning that ballots in Rockland County would be examined and there may be a “full hand recount,” the same TikTok user claimed.
Claims about the lawsuit and 2024 election results in Rockland County also circulated on Threads (archived) and X (archived).
🚨 FINALLY, someone is questioning the results of the 2024 presidential election.
THIS NEW YORK CASE is demanding:
1) Order a full public, transparent hand recount of all Presidential and Senate ballots in Rockland County to include all ballots cast, regardless of when or how… pic.twitter.com/IW9gAQxlZv— Gene Trevino (@GenoVeno73) June 6, 2025
Snopes readers also searched our website for information about whether the claims were true.
Here’s a breakdown of what we know about the lawsuit and the Rockland County election results.
Lawsuit challenges accuracy of Rockland County election results
The advocacy group SMART Legislation, U.S. Senate candidate Diane Sare, and two Rockland County voters filed a lawsuit against the Rockland County Board of Elections, questioning the accuracy of the county’s 2024 general election results.
The complaint, filed in New York State Supreme Court in December 2024, makes several claims about the election results in Rockland County. First, it alleges that election officials in the county did not accurately record votes cast for Sare, who ran under the Larouche Party.
The complaint alleges that more voters submitted signed affidavits saying they voted for Sare than the number of votes the Rockland County Board of Elections recorded for her.
It also cited other “anomalies” in Rockland County’s 2024 presidential election results, including those that have to do with what the lawsuit refers to as a “drop-off rate.” Though drop-off is not a formal term, it “refers to the difference between the votes for president and the next down-ballot race,” Lulu Friesdat, the co-founder and executive director of SMART Elections, told Snopes via email. SMART Legislation is the action arm of SMART Elections.
The complaint claims the drop-off rate between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris differed by more than 30% in Rockland County, and suggests the gap warrants further scrutiny.
In a press release about the lawsuit published on May 29, 2025, SMART Elections also claimed that in multiple Rockland County districts, hundreds of voters cast ballots for Democratic Senate candidate Kirsten Gillibrand but no votes were recorded for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
According to SMART Elections, “a statistician determined the 2024 presidential election results were statistically highly unlikely in four of the five towns in Rockland County compared with 2020 results.”
“These data would require extreme sociological or political causes for their explanation, and would benefit from further assurances as to their fidelity,” Max Bonamente, Ph.D., professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, is quoted as saying in an upcoming paper on the Rockland County data.
Snopes reached out to Bonamente to confirm the quote and request further context, and will update this story if we receive a response.
A transcript provided by SMART Elections shows that a judge said discovery must continue in the case while motions are pending. Snopes couldn’t find the transcript on any publicly available websites.
In response to the lawsuit’s claims, a spokesperson for Rockland County told Snopes via an emailed statement: “We have full faith the BOE conducted a free & fair election & that every vote was counted correctly.”
What official Rockland County election results show
It is true that Harris received zero votes in multiple Rockland County voting precincts, including some where Gillibrand beat her opponent in the Senate race.
However, there’s no evidence that these statistics point to wrongdoing or nefarious activity. In fact, a New York elections data expert told Snopes there is a straightforward explanation that has to do with voter demographics (more on this at the end of this story).
In Ramapo 35, a voting precinct in Rockland County, Trump received 552 votes while Harris received zero, official election results show. In that same precinct, Gillibrand received 331 votes and easily beat her Republican opponent. SMART Elections pointed to these numbers in a Bluesky post (archived) on Jan. 30, 2025:
Do you think it’s realistic that 331 voters voted for Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and zero voters chose to vote for Kamala Harris in Rockland County NY district 35? But that’s what the election results say. This information was researched by @electiontruth.bsky.social
[image or embed]
— SMART Elections (@smartelections.bsky.social) January 30, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Snopes also found at least four other Rockland County voting precincts where Harris received zero votes: Ramapo 45, 84, 97 and 122. The Senate results in those precincts were mixed, with Gillibrand losing in some and winning in others.
In some other Rockland County precincts, such as Ramapo 55, Harris received only a couple of votes, while Gillibrand won with hundreds of votes. SMART Elections also called attention to the results in Ramapo 55 on Bluesky:
Do you think it’s realistic that 909 voters voted for Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and two voters chose to vote for Kamala Harris in Rockland County NY district 55? But that’s what the election results say. This information was researched by @electiontruth.bsky.social
[image or embed]
— SMART Elections (@smartelections.bsky.social) January 30, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Trump’s wins in some Rockland County precincts aren’t an anomaly for the county overall. He did win 55.4% of the vote in Rockland County compared to Harris’ 43.7%. In the Senate race, Gillibrand won 52.7% of the vote in Rockland County.
Data doesn’t prove nefarious activity or interference, expert says
Neither the drop-off rates nor the results in some Rockland County precincts are proof of any nefarious activity or election interference, Benjamin Rosenblatt, a New York elections data expert who previously spoke to PolitiFact in February 2025, told Snopes via email.
When it comes to results in some districts where hundreds of people voted for Gillibrand, and nobody or very few people voted for Harris, there’s a straightforward explanation, he said: “Rockland County has Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish communities that vote as a bloc, and often follow the recommendations of their Rabbis.”
In other words, many Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish voters in Rockland County tend to cast their ballots the same way based on guidance from their religious leaders.
Gillibrand has “long-standing ties to the Jewish communities in Rockland County and the Hudson Valley,” and frequently makes “strong efforts to court their vote, knowing that these communities vote as a bloc,” Rosenblatt said.
According to Rosenblatt, the 2020 general election results in Rockland County show many similar instances of bloc voting.
She also pointed to the statistical report that SMART Elections shared “indicating that the 2024 election results, in the other four towns of Rockland County — where there is not a predominantly Hasidic population — also appear highly unlikely when compared to various aspects of the 2020 election.”
Friesdat continued:
Add to that, the fact that there are voter affidavits swearing that they voted for an independent U.S. Senate candidate in greater numbers than were recorded by the Rockland County Board of Elections.
All of this creates an environment of doubt and mistrust regarding the accuracy of the vote. With so many irregularities, it becomes impossible for voters to have confidence in the results.The best way to resolve these issues is to do a fully transparent, public hand count of all the ballots in the 2024 U.S. Senate and Presidential election in Rockland County, New York. That’s what the public deserves in order to put any questions to rest. That’s what we’ve asked for. And so far, that’s what the judge is moving forward with.
Regardless of the lawsuit’s outcome, it won’t change the results of the 2024 presidential election, which Congress has already certified.
