INDEPENDENT MAYORAL CANDIDATE JOSEPH HERNANDEZ FILES FEDERAL LAWSUIT TO BRING RANKED-CHOICE VOTING TO NYC'S GENERAL ELECTION
'A two-tiered election system is fundamentally unfair,' said Hernandez. 'Every New Yorker deserves a vote that counts, and every candidate deserves a level playing field—regardless of party affiliation. RCV ensures majority support and real choice. Without it, the system is rigged in favor of political insiders.'
The suit argues that this bifurcated structure suppresses competition, discourages voter participation, and disproportionately harms independent and minority-supported candidates. It further contends that the current system violates the Equal Protection Clause and First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as well as the New York State Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act—particularly where it may dilute the voting power of racial and ethnic minorities in a crowded field.
Hernandez is represented by Richard Cardinale, a prominent civil rights attorney known for defending everyday New Yorkers.
Joseph Hernandez is a Cuban-American entrepreneur, public health innovator, and father—not a career politician. Raised by working-class immigrant parents—his father a dishwasher, his mother a housekeeper—Hernandez worked his way through top universities including the University of Florida, Yale, and Oxford. He has founded and led over a dozen successful companies in biotech, health care, and artificial intelligence, with multiple companies listed on the Nasdaq.
Hernandez is running for mayor to restore safety, affordability, and accountability in city government. His campaign centers on practical, people-first solutions:
Hire 10,000 new police officers and deploy visible patrols to restore order on streets and subways
Enforce quality-of-life laws to bring back basic standards of civility and cleanliness
Fast-track affordable housing development by cutting red tape and converting underused office space
Use AI and smart technologies to eliminate government inefficiency and improve essential services
Launch 'smart city' infrastructure to make NYC more livable, responsive, and secure
'This lawsuit is about fairness,' Hernandez added. 'But this campaign is about fixing New York. We're going to build a city that works for everyone—safe, clean, affordable, and full of opportunity.'
Joseph Hernandez will appear on the general election ballot this November as an independent candidate for Mayor of New York City.
About Joseph Hernandez:Joseph Hernandez is a Cuban-American biotech entrepreneur and independent candidate for Mayor of New York City. A refugee and the son of a political prisoner, he immigrated to the U.S. at age seven and built a nationally recognized career founding healthcare companies and advancing public health innovation. He is running to restore safety, affordability, and accountability to New York City leadership.
For more information, visit hernandezfornyc.com.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Malaysiakini
27 minutes ago
- Malaysiakini
Home Ministry bans 2 books 'detrimental to public morals'
The Home Ministry has banned two publications, effective from July 1, due to their content allegedly being 'detrimental to public morals'. The books, 'Chase Me' by American author Tessa Bailey, and 'Ammar Zahrain: The Obsessive Husband' by local author Nssignature, have been banned under Subsection 7(1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA).
The Star
3 hours ago
- The Star
Creating realistic deepfakes is getting easier than ever. Fighting back may take even more AI
WASHINGTON: The phone rings. It's the secretary of state calling. Or is it? For Washington insiders, seeing and hearing is no longer believing, thanks to a spate of recent incidents involving deepfakes impersonating top officials in President Donald Trump's administration. Digital fakes are coming for corporate America, too, as criminal gangs and hackers associated with adversaries including North Korea use synthetic video and audio to impersonate CEOs and low-level job candidates to gain access to critical systems or business secrets. Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, creating realistic deepfakes is easier than ever, causing security problems for governments, businesses and private individuals and making trust the most valuable currency of the digital age. Responding to the challenge will require laws, better digital literacy and technical solutions that fight AI with more AI. "As humans, we are remarkably susceptible to deception,' said Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO and founder of the tech firm Pindrop Security. But he believes solutions to the challenge of deepfakes may be within reach: "We are going to fight back.' AI deepfakes become a national security threat This summer, someone used AI to create a deepfake of Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an attempt to reach out to foreign ministers, a US senator and a governor over text, voice mail and the Signal messaging app. In May someone impersonated Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Another phony Rubio had popped up in a deepfake earlier this year, saying he wanted to cut off Ukraine's access to Elon Musk's Starlink internet service. Ukraine's government later rebutted the false claim. The national security implications are huge: People who think they're chatting with Rubio or Wiles, for instance, might discuss sensitive information about diplomatic negotiations or military strategy. "You're either trying to extract sensitive secrets or competitive information or you're going after access, to an email server or other sensitive network," Kinny Chan, CEO of the cybersecurity firm QiD, said of the possible motivations. Synthetic media can also aim to alter behavior. Last year, Democratic voters in New Hampshire received a robocall urging them not to vote in the state's upcoming primary. The voice on the call sounded suspiciously like then-President Joe Biden but was actually created using AI. Their ability to deceive makes AI deepfakes a potent weapon for foreign actors. Both Russia and China have used disinformation and propaganda directed at Americans as a way of undermining trust in democratic alliances and institutions. Steven Kramer, the political consultant who admitted sending the fake Biden robocalls, said he wanted to send a message of the dangers deepfakes pose to the American political system. Kramer was acquitted last month of charges of voter suppression and impersonating a candidate. "I did what I did for US$500,' Kramer said. "Can you imagine what would happen if the Chinese government decided to do this?' Scammers target the financial industry with deepfakes The greater availability and sophistication of the programs mean deepfakes are increasingly used for corporate espionage and garden variety fraud. "The financial industry is right in the crosshairs," said Jennifer Ewbank, a former deputy director of the CIA who worked on cybersecurity and digital threats. "Even individuals who know each other have been convinced to transfer vast sums of money.' In the context of corporate espionage, they can be used to impersonate CEOs asking employees to hand over passwords or routing numbers. Deepfakes can also allow scammers to apply for jobs – and even do them – under an assumed or fake identity. For some this is a way to access sensitive networks, to steal secrets or to install ransomware. Others just want the work and may be working a few similar jobs at different companies at the same time. Authorities in the US have said that thousands of North Koreans with information technology skills have been dispatched to live abroad, using stolen identities to obtain jobs at tech firms in the US and elsewhere. The workers get access to company networks as well as a paycheck. In some cases, the workers install ransomware that can be later used to extort even more money. The schemes have generated billions of dollars for the North Korean government. Within three years, as many as one in four job applications is expected to be fake, according to research from Adaptive Security, a cybersecurity company. "We've entered an era where anyone with a laptop and access to an open-source model can convincingly impersonate a real person,' said Brian Long, Adaptive's CEO. "It's no longer about hacking systems – it's about hacking trust.' Experts deploy AI to fight back against AI Researchers, public policy experts and technology companies are now investigating the best ways of addressing the economic, political and social challenges posed by deepfakes. New regulations could require tech companies to do more to identify, label and potentially remove deepfakes on their platforms. Lawmakers could also impose greater penalties on those who use digital technology to deceive others – if they can be caught. Greater investments in digital literacy could also boost people's immunity to online deception by teaching them ways to spot fake media and avoid falling prey to scammers. The best tool for catching AI may be another AI program, one trained to sniff out the tiny flaws in deepfakes that would go unnoticed by a person. Systems like Pindrop's analyze millions of datapoints in any person's speech to quickly identify irregularities. The system can be used during job interviews or other video conferences to detect if the person is using voice cloning software, for instance. Similar programs may one day be commonplace, running in the background as people chat with colleagues and loved ones online. Someday, deepfakes may go the way of email spam, a technological challenge that once threatened to upend the usefulness of email, said Balasubramaniyan, Pindrop's CEO. "You can take the defeatist view and say we're going to be subservient to disinformation," he said. "But that's not going to happen.' – AP
The Sun
5 hours ago
- The Sun
US probes Duke University over alleged race discrimination in funding threat
WASHINGTON: The US government has launched an investigation into Duke University and its law journal over claims of race-based discrimination, marking the latest in a series of federal funding threats against American universities. The Education Department stated the probe focuses on whether the Duke Law Journal's editor selection process unfairly favors minority candidates. 'This investigation is based on recent reporting alleging that Duke University discriminates on the bases of race, color, and/or national origin by using these factors to select law journal members,' the department said. Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sent a letter to Duke's leadership, accusing the university of applying racial preferences in hiring, admissions, and scholarships. The letter urged Duke to review its policies and form a panel to address alleged civil rights violations. The university has yet to respond. The move follows similar actions against Harvard and Columbia, with Harvard reportedly negotiating a $500 million settlement—double Columbia's recent agreement—to resolve federal scrutiny. Harvard has resisted external oversight, viewing it as unacceptable. Rights advocates warn the administration's crackdown threatens academic freedom. Meanwhile, Brown University secured a $500 million loan after facing federal grant cuts, highlighting growing financial pressures on institutions. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, universities receiving federal funds are barred from racial discrimination. The Trump administration has previously targeted schools over DEI programs, transgender policies, and pro-Palestinian protests. President Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that DEI initiatives discriminate against white people and men—a stance rights groups reject, arguing such programs correct historical inequities. - Reuters
