Croton Decides 2024: The Chronicle projects Maria Slippen and Len Simon have won the two open Board of Trustee seats.

Nevertheless Voice of Croton’s candidates made an impressive showing for a long-shot write-in campaign.

The vote counting so far, not including write-in votes

The day after Election Day in Croton, we wrote that it was a “hard maybe” that the write-in campaign of Voice of Croton candidates Gary Eisinger and Nigel Ravelo could have won at least one if not both of the two seats up for grabs in our local elections. That’s because those write-in votes will not be officially counted until at least this Saturday, November 16, when the Westchester County Board of Elections begins its so-called “recanvass” of these votes.

We did not feel it would be fair to make a projection of the winners unless it could be based on mathematical certainty. We also wanted to see if the Voice of Croton campaign could make a convincing argument that the election was still up for grabs.

But we now have to conclude that while there is still a lot of uncertainty about the final numbers, there is certainty about the conclusion: It is not mathematically possible for the Voice of Croton candidates to have won.

Here is what we know at this point. First, we have the unofficial but presumably near-final tally of the two candidates whose names were on the ballot and so could be tallied electronically, Len Simon and Maria Slippen, who were candidates on both the Democratic Party and the Working Families Party line (see table above.)

Between just the two of them, it appears that Maria Slippen has come in first, with 2,642 votes, and Len Simon second, with 2,625. So for any one Voice of Croton candidate to win a seat, they would have to have gained at least enough to beat Len Simon and come in second. For both of them to have won, Eisinger and Ravelo would both have had to beat Maria Slippen’s total.

Is that possible? First, let’s look at the early voting totals as reported by the Westchester BOE.

These early voting totals show that there were 1029 early write-in votes. Election officials have told us unambiguously that this number represents the total votes for write-in candidates (that is, not the total number of ballots that had write-in votes marked on them.)

Assuming that there were few or no write-ins other than Eisinger and Ravelo, it would be safe to assume that each of them received roughly 500 early votes.

We then turn to the number of write-in votes for Voice of Croton on Election Day. This is something we cannot know for sure until the November 16 recanvassing begins, but gathering information from various sources we conclude that Eisinger and Ravelo may have each received as many as 500 votes on Election Day but probably far short of 1000 each.

The main reason for such uncertainties is that on Election Day, voting machines in at least three out of five polling stations repeatedly jammed due to an overload of write-in ballots, which the machines were not equipped to properly handle when there were more than a relatively small number of such votes. Poll workers told us on that day that they were forced to put a significant number of ballots into sealed bags, making it impossible to get an accurate count of how many write-in votes there were.

(To be clear, on election night poll workers reported the total number of write-in votes, but not whose names were actually written in the boxes. The voting machines are not currently capable of making that determination.)

That leaves the mail-in write-in votes, which of course have also not been counted. Making the most generous estimate possible, and assuming much higher than likely votes on Election Day itself, Eisinger and Ravelo would still have had to garner more than 1000 such votes each to beat either Simon or Slippen. While this represents yet another source of uncertainty, for numerous reasons we do not believe that this is mathematically possible (among them, it would require that more than 5000 people in Croton voted in this election out of an adult population of about 6200.)

Thus we conclude that Maria Slippen and Len Simon are the winners and that any other outcome is not mathematically possible.

However, that does not lessen the accomplishment of the Voice of Croton candidates. They may have earned 1000 or more votes each. If so, that would be a record for a write-in campaign in modern Croton history (the last major write-in campaigns, waged by the late Ginny Calcutti, did not top more than 800 votes.)

Eisinger and Ravelo are declining to comment until after November 16, and Simon and Slippen are also opting for prudence until the official count is completed. But former Croton United trustee Bob Anderson, a veteran of Croton electoral campaigns, provided us with the following statement, which we quote in full:

“The votes for the current election of village trustees have not yet been fully counted. Nevertheless, the Democratic majority will probably continue to control the village of Croton. Although this is not good news for the voice of Croton candidates, they are to be applauded for their efforts to create a more transparent and citizen-oriented approach to local government. They were underfunded and battling an entrenched party and they performed admirably.

I write this from my experience as a former trustee and deputy mayor who ran and won under the Croton United banner. We believed then that the one-party government in power had become inattentive to the needs of the community. There were numerous examples of back door deals and lack of transparency, for example Gouveia Park. The voters listened and they voted, and we won. I think the number of folks who came out to support the Voice of Croton this election has shown the same discontent. This is an important first step to create change in the next election. Going forward as the village becomes less tilted towards one party and voters become more independent, there is hope.”

That leaves just one last issue to be discussed, which we alluded to in our earlier report right after Election Day. By waiting until eleven days after the election to begin counting write-in ballots, we think the Westchester County Board of Elections is treating write-in candidates and write-in voters as second class citizens. Given the large number of write-in votes in Croton, we believe the BOE should have taken special steps to make sure they were counted rapidly.

They may have their reasons not to do that, but the truth is, as a local election expert told us last week, that the BOE is set up primarily to serve the Democratic and Republican parties.

Moreover, as anyone who voted knows, the boxes on the ballots for write-in candidates are so small that it is very difficult to squeeze the names into them with the pens provided. (While write-in stamps are allowed, we doubt that many if any voters used them.) When the recanvassing begins, the vote counters will have to make decisions about each ballot and interpret the intentions of the voters, possibly leaving some write-in ballots open to challenge.

And yet under state law and basic democratic principles, each vote must be counted and treated equally to that of a candidate whose name is printed on the ballot. If a write-in candidate wins the most votes, they take office.

Next year, however, if Voice of Croton continues to exist and decides to get its candidates on the ballot, we might see an entirely different outcome. We shall see.

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