Board of Election Could Take Over Cold Spring’s Polling
The Village of Cold Spring may not be running its own election next year.
During a work session Tuesday night, while far from concrete, village trustees discussed having the Putnam County Board of Elections (BOE) run Cold Spring’s elections, rather than the municipality handling it by itself.
Mayor Ralph Falloon said looking for ways to save money and reduce the workload on village clerk Mary Saari, are the two reasons why the village is considering the change. Right now, the clerk heads the election, which usually results in a 20-hour workday the night of the election, on top of weeks of preparation.
“It becomes overwhelming sometimes,” Falloon said. “Fairly stressful sometimes.”
Currently, Cold Spring and Nelsonville are the only two villages to hold its elections in March, rather than November. The village of Brewster made the switch many years ago and has its election in November like the six other towns and county as a whole.
Republican Commissioner of the BOE, Tony Scannapieco, said at the meeting if the village doesn’t want to pay for its elections anymore, it would have to hold it in November when the BOE runs every other vote count. He said, by law, the village has to give the BOE six months notice before its scheduled March election if they want a November election. That would mean the village would have to come to that conclusion by October.
If the village continues to hold its election in March, then the fiscal impact would be the same as it is now, because the village would have to pay the county to run its election since it’s on a date different than any other municipalities, Scannapieco said.
“Whenever you do an election, we will charge you what it costs to do an election in March,” he said. “We do elections in November.”
Village trustees had various inquiries and concerns about making the switch with Falloon ruling out, completely, the village would have a decision by next month, which means the next election in Cold Spring would still be in March 2015.
Trustees Michael Bowman and Stephanie Hawkins both asked if candidates for village office could keep the tradition of non-partisan lines. Democratic Commissioner Cathy Croft gave trustees an example of how a Brewster ballot looks, indicating the village could,
“I think it’s going to cause even more strife in the village than there already is,” Bowman said of possibly having national party lines like the Democratic Party and Republic Party.
If the BOE runs it in March 2015, one key difference is the results would not be certified and official until at least seven days after Election Night, which is standard for other towns in the county.
Last March, between 800-900 votes were cast by village voters in an election that got current trustees Cathryn Fadde and Michael Bowman on the board.
The conversation ended with Falloon suggesting bringing in the board of elections to do an election this upcoming March and see how that works. While the village would spend roughly the same sum of money, Falloon said it’s still worth it because then the village clerk’s office would receive some relief.
If the village board opts to have the county run the March 2015 election, Scannapieco said the BOE could be informed them as late as the end of December.
“If we like the way it was run (in March),” Falloon said. “We could consider switching to a November (election.)”
