Yorktown Town Hall to be Off Limits to Voters on Election Day
Residents accustomed to casting their ballots at Yorktown Town Hall will have to travel elsewhere on Election Day following a court ruling Thursday against Town Clerk Diana Quast.
On October 24, Quast legally challenged a decision by the Westchester County Board of Elections to relocate the polling sites for election districts 16, 17, 19 and 33 on November 7 from Town Hall to the Yorktown Community and Cultural Center and French Hill School because of planned construction of handicapped parking spaces at Town Hall.
Quast had maintained either Supervisor Michael Grace, Town Board members or Highway Superintendent Dave Paganelli had wrongly informed the Board of Elections about construction and designating new polling places would “cause confusion” and “disenfranchise the voters affected.”
Grace and councilmen Gregory Bernard, Tom Diana and Ed Lachterman passed a resolution Tuesday night at a work session that supported the Board of Elections’ decision. Councilman Vishnu Patel, the lone Democrat on the board, opposed it. Grace, Bernard and Patel are all seeking reelection on November 7.
State Supreme Court Justice Larry Schwartz ruled Quast, who is a Democrat, “has no standing” as town clerk to challenge the Board of Elections’ change of election sites.
Yorktown Republican Committee Chairman Matt Slater applauded the judge’s ruling, calling Quast’s challenge “another desperate fumble by the Democrats.”
“They have yet to put forward an original idea for the future of this town,” Slater remarked. “Instead, they launch politically motivated lawsuits to try to distract voters from the fact that they want to turn Yorktown into a sanctuary town for illegal immigrants. Yorktown Democrats should learn when to give up.”
Yorktown Democratic Committee Co-Chair Elliot Krowe said the Republicans should stop trying to interfere with the election process by putting obstacles in the way of voters.
“What lengths will these ethically challenged politicians go to save themselves on Election Day,” Krowe said. “There is no construction currently taking place in front of Town Hall and the relocation of the handicapped parking is not scheduled to begin until after Election Day.”
“The town clerk is the only town official charged with running the election process in town. We should all applaud Diana Quast for her actions,” Krowe added. “She takes her responsibility to the residents of Yorktown who elected her seriously. She works for you. Not the Town Board.”
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
