In a letter to the editor in the Feb. 23 - March 1 edition of Saratoga TODAY, Skidmore professor Bob Turner refuses to acknowledge how Gordon Boyd’s missteps led to Supreme Court Judge Thomas Nolan’s decision not to grant Boyd’s petition for a recount of the November charter change vote in Saratoga Springs and access to documents he wanted.
Judge Nolan is quite clear in his decision that there is a procedure for requesting public records in New York State and Boyd did not follow these procedures. Quite simply, Boyd ignored the clear directions on the county website on how to file a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request. Nolan writes, “Clearly, petitioner [Boyd] has not followed the FOIL procedure and of course has not exhausted his administrative remedies.”
Boyd was treasurer of the now defunct Charter Review Commission and an experienced politician. One can only wonder why he did not simply print out the form on the county website and send it in to the correct person. In any case it is not correct that, as Turner states, the “County Board of Elections has decided not to provide these [documents] to the public.” It would be more accurate to state that Boyd didn’t get the documents he wanted because he never officially asked for them having carelessly sent his request to the wrong person.
Likewise, while Turner claims, “I believe the judge erred in important ways,” a reading of the decision indicates that again it was Boyd who erred in basing his arguments for a recount on reasoning that does not apply. For instance while Turner and Boyd argued that other areas require a recount in certain close elections, the judge clearly indicates that is not the case in Saratoga County. Boyd and Turner may wish this were so, but they can’t expect the fact that it’s done somewhere else to apply in a jurisdiction where that is not the case.
Like it or not there are clear requirements for a judge to grant a recount, and Boyd’s petition simply did not meet those requirements. Nolan refers to Bradley v. D’Apice, stating, “Before a court may grant permission to examine voting machines and paper ballots or direct a re-canvass, the petitioner must provide facts which support the claim that irregularities, discrepancies or errors occurred which affected the outcome of the election.”
Turner is incorrect to tell the public that they are unable to get a recount because the judge won’t release the evidence, namely the ballots, that might indicate a problem had occurred. Other evidence of a problem in the election such as reports of machine malfunction would have strengthened their case, but they could not produce this evidence because there were no such reports of problems with voting machines occurring anywhere in the city on Election Day. Boyd was hoping that a fishing expedition might turn up something that they could use. Like it or not, this is not what the law permits.
Perhaps instead of criticizing Judge Nolan and the Board of Elections for following the law while ignoring it themselves, Boyd and Turner should direct their energies toward Albany to get the rules changed.
This disturbing attempt to spin a legal opinion to portray the charter change supporters as victims of unfair and irrational forces is not new. We saw similar attempts to claim they were the underdogs, telling the press incorrectly, for instance, that they had been outspent in the campaign when the reverse was true.
One would hope that those who seek to change the city charter and urge Saratogians to trust them to construct a new government for the city would be more rigorous and accurate. Instead we see now, as we saw throughout the campaign, a reliance on spin, half truths, and misinformation to make a case they cannot make on the facts alone.
Jane Weihe
SUCCESS Board of Directors
Saratoga Springs
