Warren, Brown And Stevenson Sweep in Southampton Village Election

In a landslide victory, Jesse Warren retained the mantle of mayor of Southampton Village on Friday, June 18, besting challenger Michael Irving by 460 votes.

With absentee votes tabulated, Mr. Warren’s final tally was 1,064 votes to Mr. Irving’s 604. In contrast to last year’s Election Day that bled into the next day, the ballot count was completed before midnight.

In the village trustee race, Roy Stevenson was the top vote getter with 996 ballots cast in his favor. Robin Brown came in next with 888 votes. Incumbents Mark Parash and Andrew Pilaro lost their seats with 715 and 611 votes, respectively.

The last vote was cast and the last machine locked down by 9:06 p.m., and within a half-hour the results were clear: Mr. Warren and the board challengers swept the election, giving the mayor a second term at the helm of the village.

By 9:45 p.m. with approximately 300 absentee ballots outstanding, candidates felt the margins were wide enough to declare victory and accept defeat. Prior to counting absentee ballots, Village Administrator Charlene Kagel-Betts and Village Attorney Ken Grey both offered that there was a margin of error close enough to swing victory from Ms. Brown to Mr. Parash, but he’d left the polling site before the counting of the absentees began. Ms. Brown was not on hand as the machine vote was tabulated.

“Now it’s time to heal,” Mr. Stevenson said. “Let’s work together to overcome the divisions and see what we can do together.”

“Somebody always has to lose,” Mr. Irving acknowledged. “We gave it a good try and we did our best. It’s most unfortunate the village is really divided and I don’t think it will come back.”

Later Friday night, Mr. Irving’s campaign released a statement: “I am honored to have received such amazing support from the residents of this village, but in the end we came up short. I am proud of the race the SV-21 team ran, and strongly believe in our vision for the village. I have spoken to Mayor Warren to congratulate him on his hard fought victory and offered to help in any way that I can.”

“This is likely the highest voter turnout in town history,” Mr. Warren extolled. “The first thing we have to do is reach out to everyone who didn’t vote for us. It’s time to include everybody because the things we want to accomplish now are universal. We have to take a 50 states approach.”

Thanking supporters, Mr. Warren concluded, “Now, it’s time to deliver again.”

On Friday, with two hours left until polls closed, some 1,100 residents had already cast ballots.

“This election has certainly gotten the attention of the electorate,’’ Mr. Stevenson said. He reported going to vote Friday morning and “there were a lot of people,” more than he is used to seeing on Election Day. “Everyone is energized and they want to get their voices heard.”

Mr. Pilaro voted at around lunch time on Friday and said “it was a war zone,” with the Southampton Cultural Center on Pond Lane packed with people. “It was crazy,” he said, noting that the individual who handled his ballot was hardly independent of opinion about her candidate preferences. “I found that a little rude,” he said, “considering I voted to hire her.”

The results closed a campaign marked by more mud slinging than discussion of the issues village voters face.

“I heard they turned away some of our village residents,” Mr. Pilaro said, speaking of voters refused ballots.

Voter suppression was a concern at the polling site on Pond Lane early in the day. Linn Turecamo and Steve Babinski are both lifelong residents of Southampton Town who recently moved into their house in the village. Last fall, during the vote for Village Board, Ms. Turecamo noticed she hadn’t changed her voter registration to match her new address. At the time, she was able to vote after filling out an affidavit authorized by then-Village Clerk Russell Kratoville. This go-round, Mr. Babisnki had changed the address on his driver’s license but hadn’t changed his registration yet. He was refused an affidavit by Ms. Kagel-Betts. “I can’t believe they allowed it in the fall and now they don’t,” Ms. Turecamo said. “It’s disappointing.”

According to Marissa Martinez at the Suffolk County Board of Elections, affidavits are offered at the discretion of individual village clerks. Another opinion, offered by the New York State Board of Elections, cites article 15 of Election Law and states “the statutory process for casting and counting affidavit ballots and the time requirements for performing these acts cannot be applied to the village election process. Such provisions would therefore be inconsistent with Article 15 resulting in the inability to use affidavit ballots in village elections.”

On Thursday night, June 17, Mr. Irving’s camp filed a complaint seeking to secure absentee ballots in Village Hall. “We thought it the best thing to secure them in the proper manner. It was a procedural thing I felt the need to happen,” said the challenger, who predicted there could be as many as 1,300 to 1,400 votes cast before the evening was out.

There are 3,187 registered voters in the village and 350 applications for absentee ballots were submitted for the race.