On October 17, the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, ordered a new primary for the Independence Party in Orange County, for the office of Surrogate’s Court Judge. The original primary results, in September, had been 222 votes for Robert Onofry, and 213 votes for Stephen Hunter. But Hunter had sued to overturn the results. In eight precincts, no voter registered with the Independence Party had signed in to vote, yet the mechanical voting machines set up for the Independence Party primary showed 9 votes in that Independence Party primary. Also, in seven other precincts, there were 17 more votes cast than there were Independence Party voters who had signed in.
The lower court, on October 3, had upheld the results anyway. Judge Joseph Owen said it didn’t matter that some voters apparently didn’t sign in, and that the votes should be assumed to be valid anyway. The Appellate Division reversed late on the afternoon of October 17, after hearing oral argument.
The two candidates seeking the Independence Party nomination for Surrogate’s Court Judge are also major party nominees for that same office. Onofry is the Republican and Conservative nominee, and Hunter is the Democratic and Working Families nominee. Presumably the new primary will be held later in October, in time for the results to be known so that the November ballots can be correctly printed. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this news.
Richard,
You see the election fraud above. Votes were “cast” before the polls were actually opened. This happens all the time in districts where one party controls the election apparatus, all over the US.
Now Imagine.
If we did NOT have the Electoral College system to limit the practicality of such fraud to state borders. The benefits of such fraud would be magnified by allowing the one-party precincts to use phoney votes to outvote competitive and well watched areas. Many one-party areas would have voter turnout exceeding 100%.
With the EC, such fraud has no effect beyond the State borders and is therefore limited.
The Maine/Nebraska system would reduce the benefits of fraud even more by containing most of its effect within a single Electoral District, and would thus make US elections less prone to fraud, at least on the Presidential level.
I tend to doubt that votes were cast in the Independence Party primary, on the mechanical voting machines, before voting began on election day. I think that is not likely, because jurisdictions that have been using mechanical voting machines have always checked the counters in the back of the machine, just before opening the polls, to make sure they are all set at “zero”. When San Francisco had those machines, I was a polling place worker and it was just automatic that that step was taken. I think it is far more likely (in Orange County, New York, last month) that precinct officials let people vote and forgot to have them sign in. I doubt there was any fraudulent intent.
The dangers of the electoral college include a tie vote, and the danger of “faithless electors” changing the outcome. The electoral college system, as it works these days, is not anything anyone would ever construct, if we were starting from scratch. Somehow we manage to elect members of Congress, and Governors, with any electoral college mechanism for those offices.
21st Century American Democracy, one more party than Hitler or Stalin……..
We’ve been through this before:
The tie vote is no problem. It hasn’t happened and we just need to give DC back to Maryland and eliminate those 3 votes.
The faithless elector has never changed the Presidential outcome, and if it did, it would be a good thing. This is an advantage of the Electoral College.
Finally, whether they added the fraudulent votes before or after, the election above was rigged. Rigged elections are common. The Democrats cheated on EVERY recount in Maine for over a decade before being caught. In Wisconsin, I watched with another witness through a window as town officials stuffed a ballot box in order to rig a recount. The Electoral College acts as a “firebreak” to limit such cheating.
If we held a nationwide popular vote for Pres and VP, the rampant fraud would amount to MILLIONS of votes in every election and would lead to a total breakdown of the election, riots, martial law, and dictatorship.
Richard is likely correct that the votes were not cast before the polls opened, but it is equally unlikely that people voted without signing in. In NY, up to 4 parties use the same machine. When the voter steps in, the clerk pulls a lever outside to set the machine for the correct party. What may have happened is Democrats or Republicans voted on the Independence Party ballot because the clerk set the lever wrong, either purposely or more likely accidentaly.
In a Special Election for a state representative seat in Lackawanna County PA in the summer of 2000, 1200 more voters signed in to vote that actually tallied on the mechanical voting machines. The County Director of Elections said they must have siply signed in and then decided not to vote. In one precinct almost 10% of the voters decided not to vote after, on a beautiful sunny weekday in June with only one office on the ballot and only three candidates, they showed up at their polling place, signed in, entered the voting booth and closed the curtain then decided NOT to cast a vote? The County Judge pointed out that this was the first time he was aware of that all three candidates and parties in an election challenged the results. The Judge ordered all voting machined to be inspected. Interestingly, no mechanical defects were found. Although allegations were made. No one was able to prove fraud. Other issues were discovered that did not impact that particular election result including long running failures to properly install lock out links for party line and unused positions. They didn’t even have the lock-out bars available for installation.
Electoral fraud is rampant at the local level in one party areas all across America. It is as bad as in any Banana Republic.
It was a totally bizarre primary.
The only county-wide race was the for the Independence Party nomination for Surrogate Judge between two candidates who each had already secured a major and a minor party nomination. 435 voted. There are 7,199 Independence registrants, and 40,958 non-affiliated voters in Orange County. About 1/2 the vote came from Monroe and Port Jervis, which have about 1/9 of the county population. While 40 (of 67) voting locations had 2 or fewer voters, there were 95 votes cast in another location. Are there any Independence Party communes in Orange County?
There was a Democrat primary in one State Assembly district, that includes about 1/6 of the county (in Newburgh city and town). 354 of 11,115 Democrat registrants voted.
There were five Democrat city/town council races, each contested in a single precinct. These were for 2-member districts, and in some there were almost as many candidates as voters.
And there were Conservative and Independence party races for city court judge in Port Jervis, which had the same two nominations, and likely as not already had the Democrat and Republican nominations.
So in about 2/3 of the county, the only race was an Independence Party race for judge. In those precincts were there machines set up for the other parties? Maybe a Democrat or Republican showed up and the election judges were so grateful that one voter had shown up that they let them vote.
Many of the one-vote precincts were in Newburgh, where there was also the race for the Democratic nomination for the State Assembly. Typically these precincts had 10 to 20 votes cast. Remember that turnout was over 3%. But during the busier times, there might have been two or three voters at the polling place, or perhaps driving to the polling place, or walking their dog near the polling place. One can imagine that in all the tumult, that a voter or two could have been directed to the wrong voting booth.
In this case the party primaries were a total waste. A Top 2 primary would have eliminated the problems.
Top 2 is just another form of Communism!