Decision on Bethel voters postponed

Lawyer objects to challenged voter questionnaire

By FRITZ MAYER

MONTICELLO, NY — In a court session on November 17, Judge Frank LaBuda postponed a decision on whether to dismiss challenges to more that 90 Hasidic voters who have recorded their local addresses as being in bungalow colonies.

According to court documents, a lawyer for the voters asked that the challenges be dismissed because the voters were not notified within five days of the challenge, which is required by statute but, instead, were notified by the Sullivan County Board of Elections on the sixth day after the challenge.

The hearing was attended by about 50 people, many of them residents of the Town of Bethel. After the lawyers met in conference for more than an hour, Gerald Orseck, acting on behalf of the voters, asked that the matter be postponed until after the absentee ballots were opened on November 19.

LaBuda agreed to adjourn the proceedings until November 23, when the matter would again be addressed. Sam Yasgur, the attorney for the Sullivan County Board of Elections, noted that the board needed to certify the vote by November 25.

The challenged voters could well decide whether Denise Fangipane or Benji Friehling will serve on the town council next year. If all the challenged voters prevail, Frieling stands a good chance of winning; if they are all blocked, Frangipane looks like the winner.

Either way, the course to this point, which has presented the board of elections with an unprecedented task, has been full of unexpected turns.

On October 29, the board of elections sent out to the challenged voters more than 90 questionnaires, each with 26 questions. The questionnaires came back with few questions answered and all without signatures. However, each was also accompanied by a document that was prepared and signed by Liberty lawyer Kirk Orseck, which generally objected to the challenges filed by Sager, because “most of the allegations are general, boiler plate, and have been made without any personal knowledge, or evidence, or any indication of who or what the source of the information is.”

In nearly all of the challenges, the voters have indicated that they live in bungalow colonies and part of the information for those challenges comes from the New York State Department of Health. According to that agency’s records, the bungalow colonies have permits to operate in limited times during the summer months.

In the case of the bungalow colony operated by the United Talmudical Academy (UTA) on Shultz Road, for instance, the DOH permit allowed for the operation of the facility from June 24 to September 5 in 2009.

So, in his reponses to the board of election, when Orseck asserts for a voter who claims residency there, that “The voter is not a temporary lodger, this residence is habitable most of the year, it is the voter-resident’s intention to utilize this residence for most of the year,” it would seem to be in direct conflict with the terms of the permit, at least for a vast majority of the residences of the bungalow colony.

In preparing its challenges, VEI has been hammering on the idea that, in state law, in order for a residence to qualify to vote, the home must be a “fixed, permanent and principle” residence, and that the un-winterized cabins in the bungalow colonies do not meet that standard.

Orseck, on the other hand, has been pointing to other aspects of the law regarding voting status when he asserts, for instance, that “The voter has extensive ties to the community and stands to be part of a growing Jewish culture/community that is being developed in the Town of Bethel. It is the voter’s intention to reside at the above address.”

Another matter that the lawyer for the voters brought up is prejudice against the Hasidim. Orseck wrote, “The board should recognize that the complaint is only challenging properties belonging to Orthodox Jews. The ugly and discriminatory nature of the complainant’s goals should be considered as the board reviews this matter.”

The Hasidic voting drive started when the town board and members of the UTA had sharp differences over the opening of a shul and community center, and issues such as whether the building should have been reviewed by the planning board before the building was constructed.