Despite five-year-old indictment, Mendez joins Paterson mayoral race

The latest entrant into next year’s Paterson mayoral race is a city councilman who has been under indictment on voter fraud charges for the last five years.

Alex Mendez announced last night that he would join the race to take on two-term incumbent Andre Sayegh in the May 2026 non-partisan municipal election.

“I will be running for the mayor’s race in 2026. You will see me. You will see me on the ballot,” Mendez said at the close of Tuesday’s city council meeting.  “And this race is going to be about the people.”

It had not been clear that Mendez was making a third mayoral bid.

Two other city councilmen, Michael Jackson and Luis Velez, along with former Councilman Mohammed Aktaruzzaman, are also taking on Sayegh.  Jackson has also been facing criminal charges related to voter fraud allegations in the 2020 election.

Mendez and Jackson were charged with election fraud, mail-in ballot fraud, unauthorized possession of ballots, tampering with public records, and falsifying records. They were allegedly involved in a mail-in ballot fraud in Paterson’s municipal elections, where the U.S. Postal Inspection Service found hundreds of mail-in ballots bound together in a series of mail deposit boxes.  Mendez faces additional counts of false registration of transfer and attempted false registration or transfer.,

The embattled Office of Public Integrity and Accountability has been unable to move its prosecution forward.

Despite their indictments, Mendez and Jackson have won re-election to their city council seats.

Sayegh became Paterson’s first Arab American in 2018, defeating Councilman Alex Mendez by a 41%-21% margin in a six-candidate field; Jackson took 5% in that race.  He won a rematch against Mendez in 2022 by a 48%-27% margin in a five-candidate race, with Jackson receiving 10% and Velez getting 4%.

Sayegh has eschewed a Democratic primary challenge to Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) to seek a third term.