Thompson voter case advances: Who are the challenged voters?

Posted 8/21/12

MONTICELLO, NY — The lawsuit against 137 voters who have been challenged and are the defendants in a lawsuit, is inching forward slowly, although it’s not known how many of the challenged voters …

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Thompson voter case advances: Who are the challenged voters?

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MONTICELLO, NY — The lawsuit against 137 voters who have been challenged and are the defendants in a lawsuit, is inching forward slowly, although it’s not known how many of the challenged voters are actually being represented by an attorney.

About 137 voters who registered in the Town of Thompson, giving shuttered bungalow colonies as local addresses, are being sued by Scott Mace, who won a town council seat in the November 2015 election. Most or all of the voters are Hasidic.

Some 110 of the challenged voters actually cast absentee ballots, and Mace, who would have won the race even if their votes had been counted, is challenging all of their registrations.

All 137 registrants were initially being represented by high-profile attorney Joshua Ehrlich, and a court session had been scheduled for February 17. But a few days before that, Ehrlich informed Mace’s attorney, David Holland, that he was not going to represent the challenged voters after all.

The case was handed off to the law offices of Henri Shawn, and the judge presiding over the case, Michael McGuire, gave Shawn a week to get up to speed on the details. At the next court session on February 24, attorney Thomas Cragan from Shawn’s office appeared to represent the challenged voters.

McGuire asked Cragan if he had “retainer agreements” with each of the challenged voters. Cragan began to respond that they were not required because this was not a criminal case.

McGuire, however, cut him off and said it’s “unusual” for a lawyer to represent 137 clients outside of a class action suit, and he needed “confirmation” from each of the 137 defendants that they were, in fact, being represented by Cragan or the Shawn law firm. McGuire said he did not want to be in a situation where the case comes to a conclusion and some of the defendants might be in a position to say, “He wasn’t my lawyer; I never talked to him.”

Cragan said that he had talked with just a few of the challenged voters, and McGuire said he believed that was also the case with the original lawyer, Ehrlich.

After that, there was some discussion about if the trial might begin in July or August, or whether there might be inquests beginning in the spring. McGuire scheduled a meeting on Wednesday, March 2 with the lawyers only.

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