Last Tuesday, the Republicans announced that they were dropping their challenges to all ballots except those from Taghkanic. The apparent reason for the focus on Taghkanic is that the challenged ballots—many from second-home owners who are also registered Democrats— could tip the election in Hoffman’s favor and unseat long-term Republican supervisor Betty Young. But as far as the voters whose ballots have been challenged are concerned, it’s déjà vu all over again. The right of second-home owners—the majority of whom are Democrats— to be registered and to vote in Columbia County is once again being challenged by the Republicans.  

The scene at the Board of Elections on November 17 when the absentee ballots from the Town of Taghkanic were examined.

Back in April, when Republican James Tedisco conceded to Democrat Scott Murphy, and State Supreme Court Judge James V. Brands ordered all remaining challenged ballots to be counted, John Ciampoli, lead attorney for the Tedisco campaign, made the prediction: “This won’t end here.” And indeed it didn’t. The November 3 election inspired a new and determined challenge to voters who maintain two homes—one in New York City and the other in Columbia County—and are registered to vote in Columbia County.  

Courts have consistently upheld the right of second-home owners to choose where they will be registered to vote. The most recent court case involved second-home voters in the rural town of Bovina in Delaware County. In that decision, delivered in October 2008, a five-judge appellate division panel concluded that what mattered was a homeowner’s “intent” and connection to a place: “. . . although they live and work in New York City during the week, they spend most weekends and vacations in Bovina. Further, these petitioners demonstrated that their ties to Bovina were not a sham for voting purposes, but genuine, long-term contacts created out of a true desire to become part of the Bovina community” (Willkie v. Delaware County Board of Elections). But this “home is where the heart is” test of voter qualification doesn’t seem to enter into the effort to disenfranchise second-home voters in Columbia County.

In April, at the close of the legal battle that followed the Special Election in the 20th District, in which James Walsh, attorney for the Tedisco campaign talked about the Republicans’ “major concerns about fraud” in the absentee ballots of second-home owners, Don Moore reported for ccSCOOP: “The Democrats are still of the opinion that individual voters can only be disenfranchised by a criminal action filed against them. That doesn’t mean, as Ciampoli said, these voters cannot be ‘squeezed in their wallets’ without needing to sue them.” This “squeezed in the wallet” approach seems to be the Republicans’ strategy now.

The Republicans are targeting second-home voters who, as Ciampoli described them in April, choose to register in one place while “receiving government benefits” in another. The government benefits in question are STAR (School Tax Relief) exemptions and rent-stabilized apartments. The Register-Star reported that private investigators have been hired to visit the New York City addresses of second-home owners who applied for absentee ballots, to interview landlords, and to comb through public city records. Their mission is to identify second-home owners who are registered to vote in Columbia County and live in rent-stabilized apartments or claim STAR exemptions in New York City. The Register-Star reported that Greg Fingar, chair of the Columbia County Republican Committee, told them the investigators have been “successful in finding a number of voters with STAR exemptions and rent-controlled apartments in the city.” The Republicans claim that both require that the New York City residence be the primary residence, but an examination of relevant documents doesn’t make it entirely clear that being registered to vote from a second-home address violates the conditions of either.

The instructions for the STAR exemption application for New York City define “primary residence” in this way: “the house, condominium, or cooperative apartment that you live in for the majority of the year or the address where you are registered to vote.” The conjunction or suggests that being registered to vote at a New York City address qualifies you to claim a STAR exemption at that address, but being registered someplace else doesn’t disqualify you. In the NYC Rent Guidelines, voter registration is cited as only one of several factors used to determine primary residence, stressing that “no single factor shall be solely determinative.”

When absentee ballots were being reviewed for the Town of Stuyvesant on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, Republican attorney James Walsh challenged a ballot issued to a New York City address, pointing out that the Rent Stabilization Code requires that a rent-stabilized apartment be the tenant’s primary residence. Kathleen O’Keefe, attorney for the Democrats, countered, “That may get them in trouble with DHCR (Division of Housing and Community Renewal), but it doesn’t get them in trouble here.”

Whether or not this time the court once again upholds the right of second-home owners to register and vote from their weekend homes, the threat of possible eviction from a rent-stabilized apartment in New York City or a costly legal battle with a landlord may be enough to intimidate some second-home voters into changing their registration.