Mistake Gave BOE Candidate 100 Extra Votes

It's a good thing challenger Joseph Magnus didn't edge out incumbent Paul Curtis in this year's Board of Education election, as it turns out he needed 100 more votes to win than originally thought.

A misread of the ballots at Preston Elementary School accidentally awarded Magnus an extra 100 votes. Final figures released by the district show Magnus received only 157 votes at Preston, as opposed to the 257 originally tabbed. The school district reported that Curtis won the election by 515 votes on election night, so the new figures only widen the margin of victory. 

When figuring in the error along with absentee ballots, Curtis actually won the election by 655 votes.

The miscalculation is being attributed to a misread of the final numbers at Preston before they were called in, according to Gene George, deputy district clerk of the Harrison Central School District. 

The mistake was caught before the election was certified, so it was fixed before the election was made official on May 18. Although small calculating errors are somewhat common, the 100 vote difference is a larger number than usual.

"Pretty much always I find something, but it's usually a small discrepancy," said George. "I'm very glad 100 votes wasn't enough to change anything."

The votes presented at L.M.K. Middle School the night of the election aren't made official until a Board of Education meeting the following evening, George said, for exactly this reason.

"That's why we don't have a board meeting that night," he said. "The next day I go out to all the machines and I verify."

With the change in Preston's voting district Curtis swept all four voting locations—originally Magnus had won at Preston by a slim margin. The change also makes Robert Piliero the only challenger to win at any particular voting district. He edged Phil Silano by seven votes at Preston, but lost overall by 355 votes.

There were no other changes to the original numbers in other races, but absentee ballots are now included in the final tally. 

Below is the official vote count for this year's election and budget vote:

Winners in bold

Absentee ballots are in parenthesis.