When Will We Really Know?

Putnam Valley residents are on tenterhooks as they await the final, final outcome of the election for their Town Supervisor and Town Board members. At issue is whether the Republican and Conservative party will maintain control of the town and its direction, as they have for many years, or whether Democrats, fueled by a strong organizing effort led by the local party's new chair, will succeed in overturning the status quo.

As of this writing, Alison Jolicoeur, who ran on the Democratic and Working Together lines, is leading Republican incumbent Jacqueline Annabi for the Town Supervisor position by 16 votes. And Democrat C.J. Brooks has 22 more votes than Republican incumbent Stacey Tompkins for the second available seat on the board. (Republican incumbent Christian Russo has been maintaining his first-place lead.) If these trends hold, the Town Board would have two Democratic and two Republican representatives and would be led by a Democratic Town Supervisor.

Such an outcome would herald a major changing of the guard beyond partisan politics. Putnam Valley would no longer be led exclusively by those whose families have lived here for decades but rather would include those who are relative newcomers. (Jolicoeur bought a home in Lake Peekskill in 2015* and Brooks has been here since 2022.) One might think such a result reflects an influx of Democrats moving out of New York City, but, according to state election records Republicans currently have more active registered voters in Putnam Valley than Democrats.

The deadline for the election results to be certified is November 29th. However, there are some key dates along the way that are likely to shed light on the final outcome. Readers can see the official description of the process here; but given the complexities outlined in that document, what follows is a summary.

At the moment, the Putnam County Board of Elections (BoE) is updating the vote totals on its website by the end of each day to include absentee and early mail-in ballots that arrive and can be counted up to one week after the November 4th election. Since Veterans Day falls on Nov. 11th, that means the BoE will keep adding these votes until November 12th. To date, 75 of the 134 early and mail-in ballots that were distributed are now reflected in the vote count and the daily changes to the totals are dwindling.

On November 10th, the staff at the BoE, which includes both Democrats and Republicans, will also add into that daily tally the results of nine affidavits that were submitted at polling stations on Election Day.

And on November 19th, the staff will review the 23 ballots for supervisor and 17 for Town Board that contained write-in names. They will add to the total vote count any write-ins that were submitted for candidates who are actually running, though that number is likely to be small or even nonexistent. That is also the deadline for military ballots to be counted, though they have until November 28th for any defects of those ballots to be cured. And there are at least eight other ballots that could have their defects "cured", with varying deadlines occurring later in November.

At the end of this convoluted process, if the number of votes separating candidates is less than 20, a manual recount of all votes will occur which would likely take a day or two. If a recount is not mandated, candidates can request one, though there might be a considerable expense for them associated with that request. Also, the BoE has some discretion over whether to accommodate such requests.

The bottom line? There is a good chance we will have clarity on the winners of this election by November 12th, but the BoE has until November 29th to make the final certification.

*Correction: Jolicoeur has lived in Lake Peekskill on and off since 2007.

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