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Elections Commissioner Lora
Allen stands by the process.
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Niagara County Democratic Elections Commissioner Lora Allen told the Niagara Falls Reporter that on Friday, Sept. 18 at 2 pm the board will open the absentee ballots that will very likely determine who will be the Democratic primary winner – the incumbent Paul; A. Dyster or Glenn A. Choolokian.
The unofficial results from the Niagara County Board of Elections show Dyster leading Choolokian, 2,110 to 2,037. Along with write-ins, that’s a 27-percent turnout in a city with roughly 15,000 registered Democrats.
And that’s a 73 vote lead.
There are as of Monday 188 absentee votes and perhaps a handful of affidavit votes to be counted.
If Choolokian wins a heavy margin among the absentee votes he can pull off an upset.
Allen is insisting that this counting of votes be done publicly.
“I called everybody; all the players so they can be there,” she said. “The staff will open all the paperwork including the absentee ballots,
voided ballots and affidavits from people who came to vote and their names were not in the book.”
Allen said that the process will be done in the open and the candidates and their representatives can watch and examine each and every ballot to ensure a proper count.
After the count is over, the numbers will be added to the unofficial tally to create an official tally and the winner will be declared.
If there is any ballot which is objected to we will hold it for three days and the objector can take legal action,” Allen said.
Allen said that she does not believe there was cheating going on in this election and certainly not by the board.
She explained why she and her Republican Elections Commissioner decided to eliminate two Deveaux polling locations – the VFW Post and the Maple Ave. School; and leave just one location.
“The reason we did it like that was the VFW closed and we had to have a place to put those voters,” Allen said. “We had St. Raphael’s and the Maple Ave. School didn’t have the privacy the voter needed.
“That was decision made many months ago. That decision had to be made in May to get it approved by the state board before any petitions were turned it.”
“We knew we had to get out of there so we put one machine in St Raphael. Next time we will have two machines or maybe even three. We were just trying to save the taxpayer money,” Allen said.