Wallkill Supervisor Candidate Asks Court to Validate Tie Election

Orange County Court Building in Goshen, N.Y., on Sept. 26, 2022. Cara Ding/The Epoch Times

Town of Wallkill supervisor candidate Neil Meyer asked the court on Nov. 30 to rule in favor of the original tie election results before the recount.

Mr. Meyer, a Democratic town councilman, ran against incumbent Republican Supervisor George Serrano, and it proved to be the closest general election race in Orange County this fall.

The two candidates tied, each earning 1,910 votes, based on the original canvas of ballots, which soon headed to a mandatory hand recount by the county board of elections.

State law requires a manual recount if the margin of victory isn’t more than 20 votes or half a percent of the total votes cast.

During the recount, Mr. Serrano challenged the validity of two ballots cast for Mr. Meyer, which were later set aside by county election commissioners and not included in the tally.

Commissioners also set aside a third ballot with a stray mark on it, which Mr. Serrano declared as a vote for him to Mr. Meyer’s disagreement.

Without counting the above three ballots, the hand recount tally showed Mr. Serrano got 1,910 votes, just two more than Mr. Meyer.

In his petition, Mr. Meyer asked the court not to intervene on the first two ballots, as county election commissioners Courtney Canfield and Louise Vandemark had indicated that the two would be included in the final tally unless a court intervened, according to the petition.

As for the third contested ballot, Mr. Meyer asked the court to rule it an invalid vote for Mr. Serrano.

If both requests were granted, the final hand recount tally would mirror the original tie results.

Attorney Thomas Abinanti represents Mr. Meyer in the court petition.

Orange County Supreme Court Justice David Zuckerman ordered on Nov. 30 that the county board of elections couldn’t certify the Wallkill supervisor race until further court decision.

All parties in the petition are due to state their cases in court on Dec. 8.

Other Wallkill Races

For the councilman seat in Ward 3, which became open after Mr. Meyer ran for supervisor, Steven Vinella, a Democrat, got 735 votes, compared with 596 votes for Earl Campbell, a Republican, according to certified results by the county board of elections.

In Ward 1, incumbent Republican Councilman Mark Coyne won 533 votes, compared with 388 votes for Democratic challenger Jean Day.

Eric Valentin and Eric Johnson, incumbent councilmen in Ward 2 and 4, respectively, faced no challengers in their reelection bids.