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WPCNR Morning Sun. July 31, 2002. The New York State Attorney General’s office team evaluating whether to bring a quo warranto court action in Supreme Court on behalf of Larry Delgado to remove Glen Hockley from the White Plains Common Council, will interview White Plains officials and will inspect the District 18 voting machine which had been determined to jam in last November’s election.
The private inspection will take place Friday morning at Fire House Number 2 in White Plains where the suspect voting machine has been stored, the Attorney General’s press officer, Mark Violette reported to WPCNR today. Mr. Violette said he did not know if his attorneys would undertake a full dismantling or breakdown of the machine. He did not think so.
WHAT INSPECTORS SAW LAST NOVEMBER, when the back of the District 18 Voting Machine was removed. After all counters had been returned to zero counts, the Delgado counter jammed at “39,” and could not be rolled back to zero by trained, certifed election machine technicians. The Attorney General’s office may inspect the machine further to see what went wrong, but a press spokesman said he did not know if a more thorough inspection was going to be conducted Friday. White Plains officials would be interviewed he said.
Photo by WPCNR
Marc Violette, Press Officer for the Attorney General said the inspection would be private and not open to the media. Jeffrey Binder, Mr. Delgado’s attorney said he was not attending and that he respected and appreciated the Attorney General office procedure.
Violette told WPCNR today that a three-attorney “screening committee” for quo warranto proceedings would be meeting with White Plains election officials Friday morning to discuss what they knew about the events election night, viewing the voting machine.
Violette said the attorney general’s office is now in the process of verifying the 103 affidavits submitted by the Delgado legal team, from voters voting last November 6 in District 18, who said they voted for Mr. Delgado.
No timetable.
Mr. Violette told WPCNR there was “no timetable” for the Attorney General’s office since no court order interval was in play. Violette said there would be no news conference following his attorneys’ inspection and interviews Friday morning. “We’re doing this work ourselves,” Violette said, “the time frame is open.”
The Story So Far:
At the time when the voting machine was originally ordered inspected by Judge Francis Nicolai of New York State Supreme Court, last December, the machine counter drum tabulating the Larry Delgado votes (top row, second from left) could not be “rolled back” from the “39” count by a professional election machine maintenance technician. (Note nothing but blank roller in the Delgado slot, while all other counters are at “0.”) Both Mr. Hockley’s attorney, Adam Bradley, and Mr. Delgado’s attorneys John Ciampoli and Jeffrey Binder, agreed the machine was jammed.
LEGAL ADVERSARIES AGREE MACHINE JAMMED: Carol Lee Sunderland, of the Board of Elections, left, Jeffrey Binder, Delgado attorney, and Adam Bradley, Hockley attorney conference calling last November at the Board of Elections in which the two camps agreed based on election machine expert advice that the voting machine had jammed.
Photo by WPCNR
No Need to See the Guts.
Attorneys for Mr. Delgado, John Ciampoli and Jeffrey Binder, told Judge Nicolai when the Judge asked them, that they did not think it necessary to execute a thorough breakdown of the machine to determine what set of circumstances actually caused the “Delgado line jam.” The two legal counsel were satisfied to establish that the voting machine had, in fact, jammed at count 39 for Mr. Delgado, approximately 100 votes less than Mr. Delgado’s Republican council running mates, Robert Tuck, and Mike Amodio. The attorneys contended this obviously meant Delgado who had outpaced Amodio and Tuck citywide had obviously lost 100 votes at least, giving him the election over Hockley.
Courts order new election. Court of Appeals Says “Nyet.”
The establishment that there was something wrong with the Delgado counter mechanism was the basis for two consecutive rulings by Judge Nicolai and the Appellate Court in Brooklyn, calling for a new election in White Plains between Mr. Delgado and Mr. Hockley, his rival for the council seat.
The New York State Court of Appeals reversed this decision, officially making Glen Hockley the winner of Mr. Delgado’s Council seat, on the grounds that Mr. Delgado’s only recourse was a quo warranto proceeding, effectively ruling that courts in New York State did not have the jurisidiction to right election night irregularities.
Attorney General’s Office Mulls Now Acts.
In June, the Delgado legal team delivered 103 affidavits of signed affidavits from voters who had said they voted for Mr. Delgado last November 6, enough voters to provide Mr. Delgado with a margin of victory over Mr. Hockley.
The effort to inspect the voting machine Friday morning is the first action the Attorney General’s office has taken to move on Mr. Delgado’s request for a quo warranto proceding.
