The Fray

Ulster Republican Chairman Roger Rascoe said this week that he has filed a complaint with the Board of Elections’ enforcement office about Democratic Senate candidate Pramilla Malick’s failure to disclose how much she paid for Times Herald-Record ads she bought before the Sept. 13 primary in her financial filings.

Rascoe announced in a press release that Malick, a political newcomer who was waging a write-in effort to get on the ballot against Republican Sen. John Bonacic in November, bought at least 10 campaign ads before the primary and that he had sent a complaint letter to Risa Sugarman, the board’s enforcement counsel, to report that Malick’s financial statements didn’t record the advertising expenses. “It has become obvious that they are engaging in fraudulent behavior to disguise their campaign spending,” Rascoe fumed. “What else are they trying to hide?”

In an emailed response on Friday, Malick told the Record that her campaign treasurer “forgot to include those expenses because they were not paid out of our committee account but rather directly by my husband. Although he had given her the information about the expense, in her rush to get the papers filed, she forgot to include it and is filing an amendment today. Please note that at the time those expenses were incurred we did not yet have a bank account or a Treasurer for that matter.” The amendment had not been recorded on the state Board of Elections website by the end of the day.

Malick, who won her write-in bid and will challenge Bonacic in the Nov. 8 election, had only $1,300 in her campaign account as of Monday. Bonacic has $750,000. His last filing indicated that he raised $26,000 in less than three weeks.

Democratic Assembly candidate Aron Wieder appears to have picked up four additional ballot lines through write-in votes in primaries held last week, judging from tallies provided by the election boards in Orange and Rockland counties.

Wieder, a Rockland County legislator who will challenge Republican Assemblyman Karl Brabenec on Nov. 8, wrested the valuable Conservative Party line from Brabenec by winning 287 write-in votes, more than double the 140 machine votes cast for Brabenec on Sept. 13. Wieder also won the Green Party line with 35 write-in votes, stripped Brabenec of the Reform Party line with a mere nine votes, and apparently took the Women’s Equality Party line from his Democratic rival, Krystal Serrano, with only four votes.

Unless those totals change when the state Board of Elections certifies the results, Wieder will have six ballot lines in all in November. He beat Serrano for the Democratic nomination and defeated Brabenec is a separate primary for the Independence Party line on Sept. 13.

Brabenec, who won a Republican primary against United Monroe activist John Allegro that same day, will have the GOP line and a independent-party line for his first re-election bid. He’s a former Deerpark town supervisor who eked out victory a three-way race in 2014 to claim the open 98th District seat, which represents a board area from rural western Orange County to almost the middle of Rockland County.

Wieder has been a county legislator for five years and is making his third Assembly run.

The Orange County Board of Elections will start reading and counting hundreds of Democratic write-in votes in the 42nd Senate District race on Monday, a process that will determine if environmental activist Pramilla Malick gets to challenge Republican Sen. John Bonacic in the Nov. 8 general election.

Some 2,910 Democrats cast ballots in the write-in-only primary on Tuesday, with 1,255 votes cast in Orange, the largest total of the four counties in the 42nd Senate District. Since no other Democrats were seeking the nomination, the only question is whether Malick withstood an unlikely pitch by the longtime Republican incumbent for Democrats to write in his name instead. Bonacic would have no opposition in November if were to get more write-in votes than Malick.

Preliminary vote counts obtained from two of the 42nd District’s counties and announced this week by Malick’s campaign suggest there is little chance she will lose. According to her campaign, those numbers indicate she had won roughly 87 percent of the 931 write-in votes cast in Sullivan County and as much as 97 percent of the 157 write-ins in Delaware. The campaign had no early indications of the tallies in Orange or in Ulster, where 565 votes were cast.

Malick, who had filed what is known as an opportunity-to-ballot petition to stage the write-in primary, said in a statement that her winning a spot in the general election would be a “victory for America’s democratic process.”

“Voters are entitled to a choice when they go to the polls on Election Day,” she said. “Taking away this choice discourages participation in the electoral process and undermines our democracy.”

When the other counties will begin counting the Senate ballots and how long it will take all four to finish is unclear. Thursday is their deadline to certify the results.

A Nassau County judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of an appointed commission that is considering raises for state officials and lawmakers and is due to convene again next week.

The case was brought in April by James Coll, a New York City police officer and college teacher from Long Island who leads an Albany reform group. Coll, representing himself in the suit, had argued that state lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo had violated the state constitution by forming a seven-member commission that could raise their salaries without any action by elected officials to enact those pay increases. The New York State Commission on Legislative, Judicial and Executive Compensation raised judges’ salaries last year and is now weighing pay hikes for all 213 senators and Assembly members, Cuomo, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and state department heads. Its deadline is Nov. 15.

In a three-sentence decision dated Sept. 1, state Supreme Court Justice George Peck granted the state’s request to dismiss Coll’s case, and rejected the idea that he should recuse himself as a beneficiary of the pay commission. “Although this court has a financial interest in the outcome of this case, recusal is not necessary because every New York State Supreme Court Justice would have the same interest,” he wrote.

Attorneys from Schneiderman’s office had questioned Coll’s standing to bring the case and insisted that raise authority still lies with the Legislature, since lawmakers theoretically can reject or change whatever salaries the commission recommends. Coll points out in response how far-fetched that prospect is, given the fact that lawmakers ended their 2016 session in June and aren’t scheduled to return to Albany until next year.

One commission member appointed by Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie suggested in July that the panel raise everyone’s salaries by 47 percent, a proposal that would increase lawmakers’ base pay to $116,900 from $79,5000 and raise Cuomo’s salary to $263,000 from $179,000. No alternative proposals were made at that meeting.

The commission is scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. on Sept. 22 in Manhattan.

The seven primaries held Tuesday for the Assembly District 98 seat have left a three-way race for the general election, with Assemblyman Karl Brabenec as the Republican candidate, Democrat Aron Wieder running on as many as six ballot lines and United Monroe activist John Allegro as an independent candidate.

Brabenec beat Allegro in a Republican primary by around 700 votes, despite losing to Allegro by several hundred votes in the areas of Orange County outside Kiryas Joel. Brabenec, a Republican freshman from Deerpark, was endorsed by Kiryas Joel’s majority political faction and won half of his 2,652 total votes in that village alone, judging from Kiryas Joel’s own vote tallies.

That endorsement may be viewed more as a rejection of Allegro – a leader of the United Monroe citizens group, which has fought the attempted expansion of Kiryas Joel – and a form of support for Wieder than an embrace of Brabenec. The same Kiryas Joel leaders who steered votes to Brabenec in the Republican primary backed Wieder instead of him in the Independence and Conservative primaries, a likely indication of their preferred candidate. And having both Brabenec and Allegro remain in the race and compete for votes in November is a scenario that seems to benefit Wieder.

Kiryas Joel voters also played a major role in the Democratic primary, voting 768-32 for Wieder over Krystal Serrano, his opponent, according to the village’s vote count. Wieder, a Rockland County legislator, trounced Serrano in the Rockland portion of the Assembly district, but Serrano beat him in Orange and had a similarly lopsided majority in that county in all areas outside Kiryas Joel.

Still to play out is a court battle for the United Monroe ballot line that both Brabenec and Allegro sought. Two pending cases seek to invalidate Brabenec’s controversial petition to run under the banner of his rival’s party and, alternately, to block him from using the United Monroe name for his ballot line or campaign.

Also undetermined is the outcome of four primaries with write-in votes that county election boards are expected to read and count next week. Wieder will have six ballot lines in all in the Nov. 8 election if he wins all four of those contests, for the Conservative, Women’s Equality, Reform and Green parties.