By KEITH GRANT
Report blasts absentee ballot bungling
Long Beach's voting record took a shot on the chin last week when a grand jury report condemned the way absentee ballots have been handled within the city during recent elections.
The grand jury handed up no indictments, but its scathing findings questioned the integrity of Long Beach's electoral system.
The investigation resulted from allegations that last May's school board election had been determined by tainted ballots from local nursing homes. Trustee Norman Alpren was re-elected to the board after receiving 90 percent of the nursing home absentee vote, leap-frogging challengers Jannine Laskas-Gillespie and Lynn Gergen.
While that election was the grand jury's primary focus, it also examined the September 2000 primary election.
Following a two-month investigation, the grand jury validated charges of many long-alleged abuses in the absentee voting process at the adult care facilities. It found serious fault with the way absentee ballots mailed to some nursing home residents are distributed, cast, collected and returned to the school district or election district for final counting.
The grand jury strongly urged the Nassau County Board of Elections to adopt Election Law 8-407, which puts the handling of absentee ballots in the care of bipartisan inspectors, and suggested the school board adopt a similar procedure until the Board of Elections takes action.
In light of the report, Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon wrote to county and state officials urging action to safeguard the voting rights of vulnerable senior citizens.
"I strongly believe that the practices which the grand jury found are deleterious to the integrity of the electoral system," Dillon wrote.
He called the practices "a corruption hazard" conducive to fraud and forgery. Such activities, he wrote, "undermines public confidence in the basic honesty and fairness of the electoral system."
The grand jury found that absentee ballots at some Long Beach nursing homes were not distributed to the addressee upon its receipt, though the ballots are supposed to be delivered like regular mail. The grand jury determined that at these facilities in question, persons from outside the facility were permitted to enter the nursing homes, meet with residents one-on-one, distribute their absentee ballots and advise them on how to cast their ballot. The same persons would then collect the completed ballots and deliver them to the appropriate polling place, rather than having them mailed by the facility.
According to the report, some residents said they were not given the opportunity to choose not to vote, or to select a candidate of their own liking. These residents, the report stated, "were told simply to sign their names to the envelope containing the ballot, or to check off the box on the ballot corresponding to a given candidate."
The report alleges that some of these residents neither understood the nature of the election nor knew anything about the candidates.
The report did not identify the nursing homes found to have allowed such practices, and simply refereed to the so-called outside people as "affiliated with one major political party." Though Democrats have been accused in the past of such practices, Long Beach Democratic leader Gene Cammarato has previously voiced support for implementing the state election law that the grand jury recommends.
State Election Law 8-407 would require the Nassau County Board of Elections to provide absentee ballots to designated bipartisan inspectors, who would visit the care facilities at a date and time worked out with the facility administrators. Portable voting booths would be brought in, as well as absentee ballots so that residents could choose how to vote. A resident who is unable to mark his or her ballot would be able to receive assistance either from both members of the board of inspectors, or from another person of the resident's choice.
The grand jury urged that until the Board of Elections adopts these procedures, the adult care facilities should do the following: distribute absentee ballots received by mail the same way it delivers all mail to residents; prohibit outsiders from entering the premises to assist residents in casting their ballots; ensure appropriate privacy and confidentiality for those casting votes; and mail the ballots or arrange for employees of the facility to deliver them to the appropriate polling place.
In a letter to Nassau County Elections Commissioners Barbara Patton and John DeGrace, Dillon strongly endorsed the grand jury's recommendations. He urged them to "take the initiative to protect the integrity of absentee ballots and the rights of voters, particularly vulnerable residents of adult homes and nursing homes."
Neither DeGrace nor Patton returned calls seeking comment before press time. Most school officials were out of town for the district's mid-winter recess and unavailable for comment. Laskas-Gillespie was happy to hear what she sees as long-overdue recommendations from the grand jury.
"Long Beach needs to address the corrupt actions of this certain political party that will do anything to win," she said. "When a person votes, it's their vote that counts. Their rights are being abused because they're elderly or mentally challenged."
The former board contender was disappointed that the grand jury chose not to issue indictments, but is optimistic change will happen so long as the county election inspectors are brought into the mix.
"The only way to cease and desist this action is with inspectors from the Board of Elections," she said. "Until then, I don't think anything will change."
The local League of Women Voters has been calling for reform of absentee voting practices. Co-president Sarah Nicholas said the report validates what the league has been demanding.
"We're happy that someone else is finally saying it, also," she said. While the league is hopeful that change will now come about, Nicholas said the group had no intention of giving up until the new election law is adopted.
