NASSAU DEMS' DEJA-VU: He votes in Queens. He works hard to get City Council Member Vickie Paladino elected. He says “our city” will be destroyed by the removal of statues and an influx of migrants. And he writes social media posts directed to those who live “in” Long Island — a two-letter word that carries a big geographical reveal He is Nassau County’s newest Republican Assemblymember. Daniel Norber, the former IDF soldier who was described as a resident of Bayside, Queens in 2023, won an Assembly seat on the North Shore of Nassau County two weeks ago, defeating Democratic Assemblymember Gina Sillitti in a razor-thin race. Last year, he proudly posted a photo of himself with an “I voted” sticker at an NYC polling site. Election law states a candidate must live in the district they are running to represent at least one year prior to the election, and Norber’s voting record and other biographical details call his compliance with the law into question. “It was 100,000 percent confirmed and proved since my kids are also in schools there, and you need a certificate of residency notarized,” Norber told Playbook on Election Day, refuting any residency issue. “That's complete proof showing that I've been living over a year in Great Neck.” He also provided Newsday — which first reported on the issue in late October — with a lease that started in October 2023 and documents proving his children began school in Nassau at that time as well. Sillitti and others still disagree that’s sufficient proof. The doubts about Norber’s residency have also created an uncomfortable deja-vu of sorts for New York Democrats. Norber is at least the third New York Republican in the last two years with glaring inconsistencies in his personal background slip through the vetting process, only to be discovered by the party at a moment that seems far too late. One year ago, Brooklyn Assemblymember Lester Chang’s residence in a Manhattan rent-stabilized apartment became the subject of an Assembly judiciary investigation. While the Assembly found notable, and possibly criminal, likely violations of the candidate residency requirement, the body ultimately decided not to expel Chang. The year before, Republican George Santos’ lies about his background during his successful House race became a national embarrassment for Nassau County — and exposed failures within the media and New York Democrats’ to research local candidates. Since then, the problem has only persisted. After all, it was Playbook — not the Democrats — that unearthed that Mazi Pilip, the GOP’s 2023 candidate to replace Santos, was actually a registered Democrat. And it wasn’t until late October that it was brought to Sillitti’s attention that Norber voted in Queens. The revelation in the final weeks of her campaign led her campaign to file a formal complaint with the state board of elections. The board told Playbook it couldn't comment on the complaint until a final determination is made. Sillitti and other Democrats who spoke with Playbook say Norber has a problem no matter what. If he lived in the district at the time, he committed voter fraud by voting in a community he no longer resides in. If he didn’t live in the district at the time, then he’s not a valid candidate. “You can’t swear both things, one has to be true,” Sillitti said. The Democrat also said she was too busy balancing her full-time job as a lawmaker and the challenges running a campaign while pregnant to catch the inconsistencies in Norber’s bio. “The whole thing is just very unfortunate,” Sillitti said. “This district is a little sensitive to candidates not being truthful about where they live. We just went through this with George Santos.” Jay Jacobs, chair of both the state Democratic Party and the local Nassau County party, which came under scrutiny after Santos’ election, said it was Sillitti’s responsibility and that of the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee to vet opponents. “The vetting process belongs with the candidate,” Jacobs said. “ The county party and the state party does not vet candidates. Never did, never will. We vet candidates when they when we're running countywide races, if we’re the county, and that’s about it,” he said. He added the party sometimes vets candidates running for County Legislature, and said once a someone is on the ballot, it’s a lot harder to contest the legitimacy of their candidacy. “Had this information come to light sooner, for instance, just after the petitioning period, we likely would have gone into court, and it's very possible he would have been removed from the ballot,” Jacobs said. DACC, which was heavily involved in Sillitti’s race, did not respond to a request for comment. The Speaker of the Assembly can ask the house’s Judiciary Committee to investigate whether a sitting assemblymember violated candidacy rules, as they did with Chang. But Mike Whyland, a spokesperson for Speaker Carl Heastie, said he is unlikely to do so. Instead, the Speaker will pursue legislative action on the matter. “This appears to be the same issue that arose two years ago with Lester Chang in that he may be in violation of the constitution,” Whyland said. “The voters made their choice on Election Day. But at the same time these apparent violations of the constitution are a serious matter, which is why we will work legislatively in the coming year to develop a solution so that candidates are not able to mislead the people they seek to represent in this manner.” — Jason Beeferman | 
