New York Congressman Mondaire Jones was once accused of stealing the Stanford student election — although he regularly condemned Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election

One-time progressive Rep. Mondaire Jones has regularly condemned former President Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, but Jones himself was once accused of stealing an election — while he was a student at Stanford University.

In 2007, Jones ran for student government vice president. Jones and his running mate, Hershey Avula, narrowly trailed their top rivals by just 38 votes, one of the closest elections in history, The Stanford Daily reported at the time.

While the student body's bylaws specifically called for a runoff election, Jones feared that he would not be able to achieve the high turnout among graduate students a second time.

“Graduate student turnout would be terrible if there was another election,” Jones told the Stanford Daily at the time. “This is a time of recovery, not of increasing polarization.”

While Election Commissioner Bernard Fraga said the Constitution required a runoff, the Undergraduate Senate and Graduate Student Council voted 12-1 against holding a runoff — and crowned Avula/Jones the winners.

Three senators later told the Stanford Daily that they were “pressured” by Avula and Jones to prevent the runoff, which they called “unethical.”

The move was also criticized by the editorial board of the Stanford Daily.

“We owe it to all candidates to call a new election campaign and hold a runoff election,” the newspaper wrote. “The call for a run-off election, as recommended by the impartial and principled election commissioner Fraga, is not about one electoral list or the other. It’s about fairness.”

Avula and Jones were accused two years later of improperly spending $13,000 of state money on food and gasoline, although an investigation into the matter remained inconclusive, according to The Stanford Review.

Fraga, reached by telephone, denied that the election was stolen and called the matter a “technical matter.”

Jones, a former congressman from upstate, is currently in a tough race against GOP Rep. Mike Lawler in New York's 17th District, which includes Rockland and Putnam counties and parts of Westchester and Dutchess.