The results of two important referendum votes meant in part to limit haredi political power could take as much as a month to be announced because the votes from both referendums are tied up by legal wrangling.
Bloomingburg And Ramapo Elections: Votes Impounded, Votes Challenged, Poll Watchers Banned And Haredi Voter Fraud Caught On Tape
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
The results of two important referendum votes meant in part to limit haredi political power could take as much as a month to be announced because the votes from both referendums are tied up by legal wrangling.
In the tiny village of Bloomingburg, New York, the votes on whether or not to dissolve the 420-person village’s government and fold the village into the neighboring Town of Mamakating were reportedly sealed by Sullivan County Supreme Court Judge Stephan Schick. The votes will, at least in theory, be unsealed in November. In the meantime, the Sullivan County Board of Elections (and immediately after that, likely the courts) will deal with the extremely high number of voter registration challenges issued by both sides.
The potential dissolution of the village government would strongly favor opponents of a high-density occupancy 396-unit townhouse development that is being markets as Kiryat Yated Lev, an all-Satmar hasidic village that backers clearly intend to subsume and overwhelm Bloomingburg’s existing 420 residents. The development was originally pitched to the village by a Lamm front-man working for the actual developer, Shalom Lamm, who claimed it would be a low-density retirement and vacation home complex complete with a golf course.
Last month, Lamm filed suit in federal court alleging anti-Semitism by Bloomingburg’s tiny government and by Mamakating’s leaders and asking the court to block the referendum. The court did not block the vote, but the lawsuit - which many people view as frivolous – is still active. Some of Lamm’s opponents that he accuses of being anti-Semitic are non-Orthodox Jews.
Lamm was accused of voter fraud in the village elections held this past spring. He, his family and almost 100 hasidim tried to vote in the election even though they were not village residents. Lamm’s daughter and son-in-law, who had never lived in the village and who both live and work full time in Israel, flew in and tried to vote. Close to two dozen hasidic adults claimed the same Bloomingburg house owned by Lamm as their legal residence, and Lamm – who had in court documents filed in late December in an unrelated case claimed that his legal residence is in West Hempstead, New York miles away from Bloomingburg also tried to vote. All those votes were excluded and a judge lashed out at Lamm and the hasidim for apparent “ballot stuffing.”
Also this past spring, the FBI raided Lamm’s Bloomingburg office and several of his local properties, and Lamm is believed be under criminal investigation.
Meanwhile, poll watchers and the media were reportedly blocked from entering the polling place in Bloomingburg Village Hall. Sullivan County Board of Elections Commissioners Rodney Gaebel and Ann Prusinski reportedly told the Times Herald-Record that only election officials and voters are allowed by law to enter polling places. They claimed a dissolution referendum follows different protocols rules under the law than a regular election.
But a spokesman for the state Board of Elections told the paper that there is no such blanket prohibition and claimed that the decision to bar poll watchers or media from entry is a local decision that is made by county boards of elections whose “main priority is to effectively ensure an election. They make calls on what they should do,” the spokesman reportedly said.
There were reportedly 240 voter registration challenges. The village has only 362 registered voters.
Board of Elections Commissioners and the county Sheriff's Office will investigate each of the challenged ballots and have until October 31 determine which registrations are valid and which are not.
Their determinations will be given to Judge Schick in November. Voters can then challenge the determinations made by the election commissioners.
After that process is completed, Schick would then reportedly rule on the validity of the votes.
Meanwhile, the town of Ramapo, New York voted on a referendum to institute a ward system and a linked referendum to add two more members to the town board.
Both of those referendums were strongly opposed by local haredi leaders whose communities now dominate town politics. Because haredim tend to live in heavily haredi or all-haredi neighborhoods, the ward system – which localizes votes – would likely weaken their power.
Both the ward system and an expanded town board were also strongly opposed by current town supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence, who is widely viewed locally as being a puppet of the haredi community.
The Journal-News reported that Supreme Court Justice Margaret Garvey ordered Ramapo to impound all the votes after emergency petitions were filed Tuesday by two local activists, Michael Parietti and Robert Romanowski. The pair challenged the Ramapo’s decision to allow unregistered voters to vote the town’s decision not count absentee ballots that arrive after election day.
In regular elections, absentee ballots are counted if they are postmarked at or before the designated time, and only registered voters can vote.
Town Clerk Christian Sampson told the paper that New York municipal law mandates that absentee ballots can only be counted only when they are received in the Town Clerk's Office before 5:00 pm on the election day.
But Judge Garvey ordered the town of Ramapo to count all absentee ballots that arrive within seven days after the election as long as they are postmarked by the day before the election. She also reportedly ordered that all ballots, including affidavit ballots, be held by the Rockland County Board of Elections until she rules on the petitions.
There were multiple reports of voters being turned away at some polling places because they were not registered to vote while other polling places allowed non-registered voters to vote as long as they could prove they were US citizens and prove residency in Ramapo.
There were also multiple reports of haredi voter fraud, including a call center that called local residents, purported to be calling from the board of elections, and urged the residents to get out and vote against the referendums. One such call was recorded by a local journalist and posted online. The caller and other phone center staffers who spoke to the journalist appeared to be haredi.
A small group of haredim bucked the local rabbinic establishment and local haredi developers and distributed a Yiddish-language pamphlet over the weekend urging haredim to vote for both referendums. The group, which claims to represent the "silent majority" of haredim in Ramapo, claimed that wealthy developers and their rabbis oppose the ward system and expanded board for selfish and unethical reasons. It urged haredi to ignore those developers and the rabbis they had misled and instead vote for both referndums for the sake of neighborliness and peace.
Related Posts:
[Hat Tip: Devorah.]