I have been trying to amass information to post to this website and some of the information is pretty hard to track down. Why? Because the answers simply don’t exist yet.
The Town of Ramapo spent so much time avoiding this Special Election rather than planning it that when the Judge’s decision came down with the time frame spelled out as it was, it became impossible to schedule the ballots to appear on the Primary Election next week on September 9th, (too early) and General Election on November 4th (too late).
So the Town of Ramapo picked September 30th leaving no one any time to plan much of anything and they get the benefit of having the Rockland County Board of Election overseeing the election and quite frankly they are still figuring out what to do.
The good news appears to be that they will make provisions for Absentee ballots, at least that’s what they are promising the public at large. The bad news is that they just don’t know what they are doing yet and the election is now only 4 weeks away.
The laws that governs this election are all spelled out in the articles of NY State Town law Article 6:
- Section 81 spells out the basics of Elections on Proposition. (This why of the election).
- Section 82 governs notices and hours of voting (so far it all seems okay).
- Section 83 – Conduct of Election (Without the oversight of the RC BOE there is concern about this.)
- Section 84 – Who gets to vote (This where all the registration issues need to be addressed.)
- Section 84a – Absentee Ballots? (A big open question.)
- Section 85 – Specific to Ward System Referendum if passed.
- Section 87 – Specific to increasing the councilmen to 6 if passed.
So for those of you calling the town and the board of elections please be assured that I am trying to track down the answers too and will post them as soon as they are ascertained.