Judge orders area ballots to be changed

Gary Craig     Democrat and Chronicle 

(October 26, 2004) — With a week before the election, elections officials in Monroe County and seven outlying counties have been ordered to change the ballots.

An Albany judge ruled Monday that the Independence Party's nomination of two state Supreme Court candidates should be disallowed because of problems at the nominating convention.

"This is the scramble you pray doesn't happen,'' Monroe County GOP Elections Commissioner Peter Quinn said about the task now facing elections officials.

State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Stander, a Republican incumbent, successfully challenged the Independence Party's decision to nominate Republican Ann Marie Taddeo and Democrat County Court Judge Frank Geraci Jr. as the party's choices for state Supreme Court in the eight-county Seventh Judicial District.

A judge in Albany backed Stander and determined that the nominating convention illegally tapped Taddeo, a former Family Court judge, and Geraci. In turn, the judge ordered that no nominees for the two judgeships be listed on the Independence Party line.

Elections officials in Monroe County now have to go into close to 850 voting machines and cover up the names of Taddeo and Geraci on the Independence Party line.

"We've got over a third of the voting machines delivered and out in the field,'' Quinn said.

Almost 40,000 affidavit ballots have to be reprinted.

Absentee ballots will not be changed but people now picking up absentee ballots are being told that they cannot vote on the Independence line for Geraci or Taddeo. If someone has already voted absentee for either candidate on the Independence line, that vote will not be counted under the judge's ruling.

Elections officials are unsure whether this will be the last time they have to reprogram the machines before Tuesday's election.

"I don't know if appeals are going to be filed,'' Quinn said.