Here & There Column 10-20-09

VEI Represents Democracy In Action

With all the enlightening news about the Acorn scandal and alleged election fraud in the past Presidential election one has to sit up, take light and totally support a movement in Sullivan County called Voters For Election Integrity (VEI).
This new organization has been formed by Sullivan County District 1 Legislator Dr. David Sager and will challenge approximately 150 to 200 recent voter registrations in the Town of Bethel which Sager represents as part of his legislative district.
Dr. Sager noted very clearly that he and the new organization is not entering into the debate between the town and a bungalow colony owned by the Brooklyn based United Talmudical Academy and the disagreement over the construction and safety of a Schul (temple) and community building.
He did point out that following a recent court battle over a temporary certificate of occupancy for the new Schul the town experienced an organized surge of voter registration by voters of many bungalow colonies made up largely of people from the ultra orthodox Jewish Satmar sect.
Thus the reason for the forming of VEI who is challenging the validity of the registrations with the belief that under current election law many of the recently submitted Town of Bethel voter registrations are not valid because people who spend one to eight weeks during the summer in a bungalow colony and have a bona fide residence elsewhere that this is where that person should vote.
VEI in challenging these summer bungalow registrations said that for a person to be a valid and legitimate voter in a voting district, more than that person's simple presence for a limited period of time in that voting district is required.
Support for VEI has come from Liberty attorney Michael McGuire, former Sullivan County Attorney and current County Treasurer Ira Cohen, the tri-partisan support of the three formally organized parties within the town (Republican, Democrat and Conservative), and a number of local Bethel politicians.
We would hope that the new bungalow colony Bethel registrations were not part of a retaliatory voter registration drive but this challenge should be welcomed by all as true democracy in action.