Trustee Candidate Questions Absentee Ballot Application Procedure

At least one candidate running for the Greenport Village Board in the March 19 election has questions about absentee ballot applications.

Former board member Bill Swiskey, who has thrown his hat into the ring for another run, said at this week's village board work session that he had been asked by several citizens about where they should go to obtain an absentee ballot application.

Swiskey said he referred them to the Greenport village website and found that the application there had a return address to the Suffolk County Board of Elections.

"After hearing from a reliable source the Village Clerk was delivering applications and collecting them personally, I found this in direct contradiction to what's shown on the village's website," Swiskey wrote in an email.

Greenport Village Clerk Sylvia Lazzari Pirillo said Swiskey's allegation that she was delivering the applications personallly was false. "It's not true," she said.

Swiskey also said the instructions for absentee ballots on the village website are "totally erroneous and should be fixed immediately."

He added that an inquiry had been made to find out "how such a such a grievous error, that could effect a person's ability to vote, was made," and said without a "reasonable" explanation, he would be forced to file a complaint with the New York State Board of Elections.

Pirillo said on Thursday that the discussion centers on absentee ballot applications, and there had been "some confusion" about that fact.

The application on the Greenport Village website, Pirillo said, was from the Suffolk County Board of Elections; the application states that it should be returned to the county BOE, on the second page of the application.

But, she said, "The Suffolk Couny Board of Elections does not run village elections."

In the elections that she has run, Pirillo said all absentee ballot applications have always come back to Greenport village. "It has never been an issue," she said. "It has never happened, to my knowledge, that the applications were sent to the county."

But, in order to "alleviate confusion," the second page of the application, with the Suffolk County BOE address, has been removed from the Greenport Village website. "We hope that this eradicates any issue that may come up," she said.

The issue of absentee ballot applications, Greenport Village Mayor added, "Have run the same way in every election."