A school clerk from Long Island who was overseeing a board of education election tore up a bunch of ballots and then threw them in a dumpster in order to rig the outcome for a local DJ, according to the results of an internal investigation. Hempstead Union School District Clerk April Keys is accused of rigging a May 19, 2026 trustee election by smuggling official ballots out of her office and handing absentee ballots to incumbent candidate Victor Pratt to dispose of them.
Keys is now looking at potential criminal charges for her actions as the district seeks to overturn Pratt’s extremely thin victory. Pratt is a third-term trustee and once led the board as its president. He also, strangely, moonlights as a local DJ, going by the moniker DJ Vic-Lover, according to information gleaned from his social media accounts.
“The Board of Education Trustee election must be overturned because widespread irregularities affected the outcome of the election and were so pervasive that they vitiated the electoral process,” a filing, from the Hempstead school district’s attorneys, went on to say. The filing, which was officially submitted on June 15, requests state Education Department Commissioner Betty Rosa to order a new election, with a replacement clerk and oversight by the state Attorney General’s Civil Rights office.
According to a report from the New York Post, the district decided to launch an internal investigation after it found several major irregularities in its election for the unpaid trustee positions. Pratt only won the seat by a total of 81 votes. His win was bolstered by a large number of absentee and early mail ballots, which raised suspicion as he only came in third place on machine voting.
Pratt brought in a total of 87% absentee votes and 55% of early mail votes, compared to just 27% of in-person machine votes. Other candidates received less than 100 absentee votes and early mail-in ballots combined, according to the results of the investigation. Three days after the election, Keys was placed on administrative leave.
The same evening, District Superintendent Gary Rush went into her office and found an oversized cafeteria-style garbage can with a tied bag inside it. Rush was stunned when he found stolen 2026 election ballots inside the bag. He immediately placed Keys’ office on lockdown and ordered the locks changed immediately.
When investigators returned to the office four days later, the garbage can was missing, allegedly dumped by the custodian, Owen Peters, who took the bag and disposed of it in an outdoor dumpster the same morning the locks were being changed. Peters cooperated with investigators and led them to the bag, which was sitting in a foot of standing water.
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Investigators found a stash of ripped up ballots for both Pratt and his main challenger, Gwendolyn Jackson, along with shredded mail ballot applications with voters’ names, addresses, and signatures all still visible. The bag also contained unused ballots and tally sheets. The coordinator for Jackson’s campaign, identified as Allah Supreme Mathematics, revealed that he returned 120 early mail ballots to Keys’ office on election night, but only 79 were counted. There was no explanation provided for the missing 33 votes.
The custodian was found on security footage leaving Keys’ office with the bag full of ballots. Keys also coached Peters on how not to get caught. “Ms. Keys told him to use a different staircase because the security aide stationed at the bottom of the staircase by the administrative offices would ask questions and it ‘risked appearing suspicious,’” the filing said.
The night before the election, Pratt was also caught on surveillance footage showing up at the clerk’s office that evening carrying a manila folder. He allegedly stayed for around 90 minutes and was seen leaving Keys’ office with a stack of 125 absentee ballots. When Pratt was shown the footage, he claimed to not remember having the envelopes, didn’t know what they were for, and didn’t know where they were now.
Featured Image: screenshot from embedded video