37 Votes, Into the Wind
The US postal system has slowed down during the pandemic. Mail from a few towns over that usually takes one to two days can take much longer.
That’s why Governor Cuomo extended the mail-in ballot deadline an additional week for our recent school board elections. But MyRye.com was curious how many ballots showed by at school headquarters after the updated, extended deadline. Under the NY State Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), we asked Rye schools how many ballots arrived after the deadline.
There were 2,589 votes (yes and no votes) for the school budget. An additional 37 votes came in after the deadline. The 37 would have amounted to 1.4% of the total. The one person in Rye who will be curious to read this will be Jim Culyer, who lost a school board seat to Vivek Kamath by just seven votes (Culyer 722 votes to Kamath 729 votes).
So how were these 37 late mystery ballots cast? We will never know.
“I was advised by our school attorney not to canvass these ballots,” said Lauren McGowan,
Office of Personnel/District Clerk, when responding to the MyRye.com FOIL request.
