Judge rules Westchester Board of Elections cannot certify Harrison town supervisor race
Attorneys for both write-in challenger Ron Belmont and incumbent Republican town supervisor Rich Dionisio agreed this was the right course of action.
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State Supreme Court Judge Lewis Lubell implemented a stay against the Westchester Board of Elections barring commissioners from certifying the results of the Harrison Town supervisor race because too many ballots have been contested.
Attorneys for both write-in challenger Ron Belmont and incumbent Republican town supervisor Rich Dionisio agreed this was the right course of action.
The judge's decision came the day after Belmont's attorneys called for the pause over accusations against the county board of elections of "irregularities observed during the recanvassing process."
County elections officials spent most of the past week reviewing more than two thousand write-in votes for Belmont. He entered the week with a one-vote lead over Dionisio but is now unofficially tailing after Dionisio's attorney contested dozens of ballots for various issues.
According to court documents, ballots were not counted for Belmont because voters misspelled his name, wrote it in the wrong box or only included his first or last name.
"There is no consistency in that respect and that's why we need the court. I do, believe that the court will now come to the rescue of the voters and evaluate all of these ballots with a fresh eye," said Jeffrey Binder, attorney for Ron Belmont.
Dionisio's attorney, John Ciampoli, said he believes this pause will give everyone a chance to get the actual results of the race.
"No one's going to run to the clerk's office to file an oath of office and if somebody did do something like that, I think they'd be in front of the judge and he won't be too happy," said John Ciampoli, attorney for Rich Dionisio.
Both parties are scheduled to be back in court on Wednesday, December 6, at 9 a.m. where the judge will go one-by-one through each contested ballot and rule whether to award it to Belmont or toss it out altogether.
Without court intervention, Saturday would have been the deadline for the county board of election to certify races to the state.
County elections officials did not have an updated unofficial total on this race. Neither the Republican nor Democratic commissioner responded to our request for a comment.
