Rende Certified as North Castle Supervisor Winner Amidst Fraud Allegations

Accusations of attempted election fraud continued to be leveled last week in North Castle as the Westchester County Board of Elections certified Democrat Joseph Rende the winner of the town’s supervisor’s race.

Officially, Rende defeated Republican Councilwoman Barbara DiGiacinto by four votes, picking up one vote following a two-day manual recount that was completed late last Thursday. The council race had been decided weeks ago with incumbent councilmen Jose Berra and Saleem Hussain, Rende’s running mates, the winners.

However, a furor erupted after Rende went to court to challenge six absentee ballots post-Election Day, arguing that those ballots’ signatures did not match what was on file with the Board of Elections and/or those people do not live in town and were therefore ineligible to vote in the race. Ultimately, four of those ballots were withdrawn on Nov. 17 during the second of two court appearances on the matter.

During testimony from a Nov. 14 court session before state Supreme Court Justice Nancy Quinn Koba, the parties had agreed to set aside the disputed ballots until the remainder of the absentee ballots were counted to see if they could still decide the election. After Election Day, Rende led by one vote and his lead grew to three votes after all other absentee ballots were counted.

Fueling cries of corruption was that three of the withdrawn ballots had been submitted by adult children of outgoing Supervisor Michael Schiliro and Town Clerk Alison Simon, according to court testimony from Nov. 14.

Some supporters of the new supervisor-elect have alleged that DiGiacinto, along with Schiliro and Simon, attempted to inflate her vote total that could have turned the election in her favor by knowingly helping to get what should have been ineligible ballots filled out and returned to the Westchester County Board of Elections.

Last Wednesday evening during a tense and rowdy public comments portion of the Town Board meeting, resident Robert Greene brought a poster displaying enlarged images of signatures from the disputed ballots that he claimed didn’t match what was on file at the Board of Elections. Greene said he had hired a handwriting expert who concluded that there was “almost no possibility” that the same person signed both the ballots and their card on file at the Board of Elections.

Greene also questioned whether each person lived in North Castle. In each case, they have residences elsewhere but return home to visit or stay with family, according to court testimony.

As a result of the controversy, Greene has repeatedly called on DiGiacinto, Simon and Schiliro to resign their posts for their roles. Schiliro is leaving the board after 16 years at the end of the month, the last 10 of which he served as supervisor.

“So I think this is a stain on this town, so I think we have to recognize this problem and do something about it in the future because I can’t think of a worse situation than I have my vote stolen,” said Greene, who sent out a Dec. 7 e-mail alleging fraud. 

At last week’s board meeting, when another town resident, Sue Coppola, asked DiGiacinto when she knew the four withdrawn ballots were flawed, DiGiacinto said it was unfortunate that misinformation has been spread.

“I think that anyone who knows me knows that I am known for my integrity and my honesty, and if you think that I wanted to be supervisor so badly that I would, as has been said in an e-mail, orchestrate voter fraud, then you don’t know me and I don’t want to know you,” DiGiacinto said.

Reached late last week after the race was certified, DiGiacinto said that the allegations were “absolutely, positively, unequivocally false.”

“The only thing we did was encourage people to vote if they supported me, supported my running mates,” she said. “Then I said make sure you vote. That was the extent.”

She also said that Rende and his supporters assumed that all of the withdrawn ballots would have been for her. The withdrawn ballots were never opened.

In a response to a request from The Examiner for an explanation of state election law regarding residency, the state Board of Elections stated that if someone has more than one residence, they can choose which address they can register to vote.

“(R)esidence in Election Law is defined as where a person maintains a fixed, permanent and principal home and to which he, wherever temporarily located, always intends to return,” read a statement from the state Board of Elections. “In the case of someone having more than one residence, their registration should be at the address which they consider their principal home.”

Rende said that his intention in going to court was to make sure that only the ballots that should be counted decided the race.

“My concern was that ballots that should not be counted were counted because I wanted to see the election be fair and honest and I wanted to hopefully protect the integrity of not only this election but future elections in town,” Rende told The Examiner last Friday. “That’s why I did what I did.”

He said he will not report any potential wrongdoing to authorities and is focused on taking over as supervisor Jan. 1.

However, there had been speculation by DiGiacinto’s supporters over the past month that the allegations of fraud are politically motivated, in particular against Schiliro, a Democrat, who endorsed the entire Republican slate rather than Rende.

Resident Neal Baumann said the claims of illegalities were made to “smear good and dedicated people.”

“These attacks are clearly designed as a righteous, ethical response to a perceived unethical act. Don’t believe them,” he said. “For 16 years as a councilman and a supervisor, Mike Schiliro has accomplished much. But none of this matters to a small group of politically active people in town. You see to some people Mike committed a political mortal sin. He crossed political lines and endorsed candidates from another party.”

Schiliro would not comment on the allegations, but in his time in office a wide variety of outlandish allegations have been made against him, he said.

“Unfortunately, my family and I have been dealing with this for 16 years,” Schiliro said. “So, it’s sort of along the same lines. It’s unfortunate. I think it presents a disincentive for people to run for public office.”