Republican Running Against Stefanik Caught on Video Filling Petitions for Himself, Drops Out of Race

House Republican Conference Chairman Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) speaks during a town hall event hosted by House Republicans in Washington on March 1, 2022. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Lonny Koons, a Republican who was a primary challenger to Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for the 21st Congressional District of New York dropped out after allegations of illegally filling petition sheets.

Parked at a Walmart on March 24, Koons, a trucker and veteran who was allegedly anti-Trump, was video recorded in his car signing petitions for himself, unaware that he was being recorded.

GOP candidates needed at least 1,250 signatures to be seen on the ballot by April 4. According to election laws, all the petition signatures appearing on the ballot should have original marks from the signers themselves.

“I am [dropping out of the race] mainly because I cannot sustain a political campaign on my own,” he said, according to Press-Republican. “I had stayed afloat by pulling out half of my 401k and that is not enough,”

According to Just The News, Koons wrote in a now-deleted Facebook post: “It has come to my attention that I have been fraudulently filling in information on my petition sheets; I was unaware that by my filling in date and city cells as well as printing names of the signees after the fact that I was committing a fraudulent act.”

He later told the outlet, “I had people who had lined out their names in order to correct it so I was recreating the messed up pages,” asserting that he didn’t alter the signatures, just the names and information of the signers.

“I know how this looks and because of that and the financial burden I have put myself in I am withdrawing from the race,” Koons added. “The implications of those videos goes against everything I stand for and I have to accept that no matter [my] intentions, it will always be viewed as if I were cheating.”

“I am sorry that I let so many people down; there is no excuse and nothing I can do to prove my intent. So with that, it’s just better for me to disappear politically.”

Stefanik commented on a campaign statement: “This is a serious crime and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

“Ms. Stefanik as a Republican is a great Republican, but she doesn’t represent the middle of our district,” Koons told Times Union in November. “We’re the ones scraping by and living paycheck to paycheck, and she wasn’t brought up that way.”