Kabot won't appeal to Board of Elections

Southampton Town Supervisor Linda Kabot has decided not to appeal a decision by the Suffolk County Board of Elections to toss out her petition to appear on the Integrity Party ballot in this fall’s general election.

Although she initially said she planned to fight the ruling, the supervisor said Wednesday morning that she had changed her mind. What influenced her decision, Ms. Kabot said, was the town’s financial condition.

“My focus needs to be on the town right now—that’s what I was elected to do,” she said. “Politics comes with the territory, but it is not my chief focus.”

An appeal would have cost her $8,000, she said, and would not have been worth it.

The supervisor also said she didn’t want to go through the process of suing her opponent, Anna Throne-Holst, saying that spectacle was not in the best interest of the town. “We sit next to each other and have to work together,” Ms. Kabot said. “I didn’t want to put the voters through that.”

The Board of Elections sent a letter to Ms. Kabot last week informing her that her petition was invalidated. That decision came about a week after Mike Anthony, the former chairman of the Southampton Town Democratic Committee, filed a challenge to the petition, arguing that many of the signatures on it were not valid.

According to Cathy L. Richter Geier, the Board of Elections’ Republican commissioner, Ms. Kabot collected 902 signatures, more than the 859 she needed to appear on the ballot. Of those, 143 signatures were ruled invalid, leaving Ms. Kabot with only 759 valid signatures, 100 fewer than she needed.

Initially, Ms. Kabot said she planned to appeal the ruling claiming the move to keep her off the Integrity Party line was an attempt at “election-rigging” by Democratic Party bosses at the behest of Ms. Throne-Holst, Ms. Kabot’s sole challenger this fall.

“This is yet another example of dishonest political maneuvering by party operatives—this time from Anna Throne-Holst’s camp,” Ms. Kabot said.

Ms. Throne-Holst said last week she would not engage in political rhetoric over the ruling. She did say, however, that Ms. Kabot had every right to appear on the ballot if her signatures were valid ones.

“It’s about democracy. It’s about following the law,” she said. “If you have enough valid signatures then you should be on the ballot. If you don’t have the signatures then you shouldn’t be, no matter who you are. It’s just that simple.”

Ms. Kabot argued that Mr. Anthony’s objections lack substance and focused instead on “smudges on dates, squiggles in signatures and other nitpicky aspects of the filed petition.”

“I think it is pure political sabotage to attack voter signatures on nominating petitions in this manner,” she said. “Moreover, it has been my experience that there is no fair play at the Board of Elections at all.”

Mr. Anthony said he objected to signatures on the basis that the signers were not registered voters and not Southampton Town residents and he pointed out that the Board of Elections, not the Democrats, threw out Ms. Kabot’s petition. And while Ms. 
Geier refused to comment on Ms. Kabot’s assertion, she did say that the elections board is made up of a bipartisan panel “to be fair and equitable to all.”

For a signature to be deemed valid under Board of Elections guidelines, it must correspond with the name of a voter registered in Southampton Town who resides at the address listed on the petition. And while anyone, including those not registered with a political party, can sign the Integrity ballot, a signature becomes void if it has already appeared on a different petition.

Town Councilwoman Nancy Graboski defended Ms. Kabot and criticized the Democrats’ actions.

“The challenge undertaken by Michael Anthony at the behest of Anna Throne-Holst is against the principles of the Integrity Party, which advocates for ballot access and voter choice,” she said. “For all their constant crowing every two years about ‘one-party rule,’ the Southampton Democrats are a bunch of hypocritical, disingenuous, underhanded sneaks trying to keep another party off the ballot.”

The Integrity Party flap is the latest in a string of challenges Ms. Kabot has faced in her bid for reelection. At its convention in May, the Town Republican Party snubbed her and instead chose then Southampton Town Conservative Party Chairman Jim Malone to run for supervisor. Ms. Kabot then vowed to force what was expected to be a bitter primary, and party leaders later relented, giving her the GOP’s endorsement. Ms. Kabot also expected to get the Conservative Party nod, but its leaders opted not to endorse a candidate for supervisor.

Ms. Throne-Holst has the endorsements of the Democratic, Working Families and Independence parties.

Brian Bossetta