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A blogger and village resident who made an unsuccessful run for Westhampton Beach trustee two years ago on Thursday night challenged a sitting board member on how he plans to alert voters when their village residency is being questioned.
Village Board member Hank Tucker said that in light of what happened during the June 19 village election, when some voters said they felt embarrassed and outraged that their eligibility to vote was challenged at the last minute, that the village should change the way it notifies voters and educate them about their rights.
“To me, if that’s the only possible way we can accept it, well, so be it and fine,” Mr. Tucker said during Thursday night’s board meeting. “[But] if there is something we can do about it, a procedure we can change as a village, if we have the authority, we should change the process.”
Dean Speir, the author of the “On The Beach Blog,” lost his bid for trustee in 2007 when he was narrowly defeated by Mr. Tucker’s running mate in this year’s election, trustee Joan Levan. In June, Mr. Speir challenged the eligibility of 64 voters minutes before the polls opened at Village Hall.
During the board’s July 6 organizational meeting, Frank Wright, a Westhampton Beach resident whose voting eligibility was challenged, said he felt that there should be a time requirement so that individuals could “clear their name” once they are challenged and before they head to the polls. Mr. Tucker said he agreed with Mr. Wright, and that the board will take a look at state election law and do whatever is in its power to avoid a repeat occurrence, according to the minutes of that meeting.
According to state law, Mr. Speir does have the right to challenge the residency of voters on the day of an election. On Thursday night, Mr. Speir said he wanted to know what Mr. Tucker proposed to do to change the system if the village is bound by state law.
“What about state law do you think, as a village trustee in Westhampton, you can do something about?” Mr. Speir asked Mr. Tucker. “If you really wanted to do that, like you wanted to do two months ago, you can do something about it in the village newsletter.”
Mr. Tucker said the village might send out a special newsletter, adding that the way Mr. Speir challenged the voters was “offensive.”
“Next year, are you going to challenge 550 people because you think the election is not going to go the way you wanted it to go?” Mr. Tucker, who won reelection in June, asked Mr. Speir.
Mr. Tucker added that there should be a better process to notify those voters whose residencies are being challenged.
“We have to fix the process and make it better for our residents,” he said. “It’s not about looking to see who did what wrong or how or why.”
Westhampton Beach Village attorney Bo Bishop explained that no residents were unfairly stripped of their right to vote in the June election, regardless of whether or not they felt embarrassed by the process.
“I think it’s important to follow the election law,” Mr. Bishop said. “No one was disenfranchised.”
The brief verbal spar between Mr. Tucker and Mr. Speir came after the blogger asked during the public comment period of Thursday’s meeting if the village had received a response from the New York State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials and the New York State Board of Election. The response was supposed to answer whether or not the village followed proper procedures on Election Day.
Mr. Bishop said he had just received a letter from the conference on August 28 and had not yet had a chance to share it with the board. He sent letters to the conference and New York State BOE on July 21.
The letter from the New York State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials stated that both the procedure that Mr. Speir followed to challenge voters was legal and the process in which Village Clerk Kathy McGinnis addressed the challenged voters was legal. The same letter also stated that people with multiple homes cannot switch their voter registration twice in one year.
However, state election law stipulates that a person with more than one home can change his or her residency residence up to two times a year, according to a representative of the New York State BOE.
Mr. Bishop pointed out that the registration provision is not entirely clear in the letter sent from the New York State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials, and that he is still waiting to hear back from the New York State BOE.
Mr. Speir challenged the eligibility of 64 voters in this year’s election on the grounds that they did not live in Westhampton Beach. Mayor Conrad Teller also submitted the names of 17 people, including some names that were already on Mr. Speir’s list, to the village clerk prior to the opening of the polls on June 19.
About two dozen people whose names were on Mr. Speir’s list showed up to cast ballots in the election. Ms. McGinnis had them fill out a questionnaire and swear that they did, in fact, live in the village. Twenty people voted, two took the questionnaire and never came back, and three voted without giving Ms. McGinnis an affidavit.
Ms. McGinnis said during July’s organizational meeting that she received the list of challenged voters only minutes before the polls opened in June, and there was no way to notify those voters beforehand. The questionnaire and the affidavit are required by state law if a person’s residency is challenged, and the village needs to follow that procedure or the results of the election could be voided.
At the same July meeting, a number of residents whose votes were challenged questioned the Village Board about the legality of the process. Some said they were embarrassed that they were pulled out of the line when they showed up to cast their ballots.
on Sep 9, 2009