A state Supreme Court judge on Thursday, Oct. 1, withheld judgment in a lawsuit filed by Bethlehem supervisor hopeful Sam Messina against incumbent Jack Cunningham over votes that could decide who will appear on the Working Families Party line in November.
Judge Kimberly O’Connor asked for supplemental briefs from both sides after five hours in court on Thursday, and will likely deliver a decision early next week.
Republican-endorsed Messinawho is a member of the Independence Partyis alleging that 11 voters who registered with the Working Families Party on the eve of the cutoff to vote in the primary election did not properly verify their identities, and thus the absentee ballots the submitted should be invalidated.
He also contends that the registrations were an effort by Cunningham to seize control of the WFP in Bethlehem. Including the last-minute registrants, there are approximately 28 WFP voters in the town, and the party endorsed Messina.
According to Albany County Republican Election Commissioner John Graziano, a third party entered the Board of Elections offices on Aug. 20 and asked for Democratic Commissioner Matthew Clyne, who accepted the registration and absentee ballot applications.
`The intent of the people who brought these applications in was to walk out with ballots that people could vote on, which would essentially amount to same day voting,` Graziano said.
Clyne, who is also the chairman of the Bethlehem Democratic Party, said that the identity of the voters was indeed verified through the application process, and they were fine to cast votes.
`There’s no question that they were in fact validated,` Clyne said. `All of their identities were confirmedthese are authentic voters.`
New voters are required to provide the last four digits of their social security number or their driver’s license number. If these are not confirmed through the statewide voter database they will be flagged on the voter rolls and required to provide identification at the polling place, but since these voters were voting by absentee ballot that rule does not apply, said Clyne.
`The whole issue of producing identification doesn’t even apply,` he said.
Graziano and Messina both said that identity would have to be provided through the mail for a first time voter using an absentee ballot.
The absentee ballots were objected to by Messina’s attorney, James Walsh, and have remained sealed in anticipation of a judge’s ruling.
`I think there was an orchestrated effort to register voters to control the party,` Messina said. `It just does not seem to be right in the spirit of the law to have so many people registered and absentee ballots used by new voters all at once.`
Cunningham, a Democrat who will also appear on the Independence line in November, said that his campaign efforts have been legitimate.
`Whenever I run for office, I work to register people to vote, and encourage them to enroll in parties,` he said. `That’s no different in this election.`
Clyne said that signing new voters up to the WFP is simply politics.
`The effort was to beat him [Messina] in the primary election, because people went out and did campaign work, which he apparently elected not to do,` Clyne said. `Not only isn’t it illegal, but that’s the name of the game.`
O’Connor’s decision could well swing the outcome of the primary. Messina received 10 votes on Sept. 15 and Cunningham, who staged a write-in campaign, was the recipient of four votes. Two absentee ballots left the vote at 11-5.
Including August’s registrants, there are approximately 28 WFP members registered in the Town of Bethlehem, said the party’s Capital Region Organizer Karen Scharff. She said the party is dedicated to a clean election process and is thus behind Messina’s effort.
`In general, county boards of elections don’t pay enough attention to the absentee ballot process,` she said. `We want to make sure our registrants have their votes cast accurately.`
Messina’s lawsuit comes while a full-scale investigation into allegations of Democrat-perpetrated voter fraud on the WFP line in Troy is underway. Messina said the two instances are not alike.
`No one is alleging fraud in this case,` he said.
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