Wait! I thought if it was just one invalid vote, its ok…
Wait! I thought if it was just one invalid vote, its ok…: “
A school board election ended in a tie after an absentee ballot from one candidate’s dead brother-in-law was ruled invalid. Vicky Peo and John Wilson each received 388 votes Tuesday for a seat on the Ogdensburg City School Board. The tying tally came after an absentee ballot from Peo’s brother-in-law, Franklin ‘Peanut’ Bouchey, was ruled invalid because he died three days before the election.
In this situation, there was no illegal vote cast, however the New York State education law states that if the person who casts the absentee ballot is not living on the day of the election the vote cannot be counted.
An official runoff election for the board’s third seat scheduled for June 23.
Frontrunner for the nomination to the Supreme Court nominee, doesn’t understand what the big deal is with one invalid vote being cast and counted. At a hearing in Ms. Prude’s case, Wood stated; ‘ It is not like she voted five times. She cast one vote.’
This ‘only one vote’ excuse for not prosecuting fraud trivializes the election process. In Ogdensburg no illegal votes were cast, but that that one vote, is going to cost the city another election. If the invalid vote had been fraudulent, would Judge Diane Wood still ‘ find this whole prosecution mysterious’?
Tags: Absentee Ballots, Dead Voter, New York
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(Via Election Journal.)