CONTACT: Bruce A. Martin, (516) 924-8680/8694 bam@hamptons.com
Despite the fact that Bruce A. Martin was officially "designated" as a Conservative candidate, in petitions accepted by the Board of Elections in July and unchallenged during the statutory period, Bianci went to court in late August to try to invalidate Martin's petitions, using a combination of techniques, including allegations of fraud, attempts to disqualify witnesses and notaries. Fortunately for Conservatives, Justice Patrick Henry finally rejected all of the major allegations and refused to order the Board of Elections to remove Martin's name from the September 15th primary ballot, as Bianchi had asked.
Bianchi's attorneys and process servers first delivered the original court papers to Martin's twelve year old daughter on August 5th, and he did not even see them until that evening, only eleven hours before his presence in court was ordered for the next morning. Unable to find an attorney in time, Martin went to court as ordered, only to find that the other parties were not there and no judge had been assigned. This was one day before he was scheduled to begin a planned vacation, out of the country. While he was gone, Bianchi's attorneys went to court and actually obtained rulings which might have thrown martin off the ballot. Fortunately, these were reversed by Judge Henry, when Martin, still acting in his own behalf, went to court on Thursday August 20th and successfully defended the petitions against all of the attacks which would have disqualified it.
A key portion of the day-long trial was the testimony of Notary, John Bloom, whose petitioning procedures were attacked in several ways by Bianchi's lawyers and "investigators", but upheld completely by the judge. Bloom, who is also the Libertarian Party candidate for Brookhaven Town Council, prefers to avoid the word "swear" and instead asks people to "solemnly affirm" what they sign, when he notarizes documents. Altho this is entirely consistent with state law, Bianchi challenged Bloom's petition sheets with affidavits from voters who said that they had not been "sworn as a witness". However, the judge saw thru the attempt and ruled that Mr. Bloom's procedures were fully acceptable.
Bianchi also accused Martin's wife and other petitioners of "a pattern of fraud", claiming that certain pairs of signatures were forgeries that had been written by the same person. In each case, the judge examined the pairs, and ruled that they were not in the same handwriting. The judge grew impatient when Bianchi's attorney again tried to use these pairs, which he had rejected, as the basis for claiming a "pattern of fraud". After the trial, Mr. Bloom produced copies of Bianci's Democratic petition which contains several pairs of signatures that more-convincingly appear to be similar.
Only nine of the signatures which Biacnhi challenged were invalidated at the trial, either because they were duplicates or the signer was not registered. Since Martin had submitted 124 signatures to the Board of Elections, this left him with well over the minimum of 92 required for Conservative Party designation, and he gets to remain on the ballot -- to face Bianchi again, but this time in the primary election, when Conservatives get to choose between them as their party's candidate.
No Republican will be on the ballot in November, to face the two Democrats vying to represent them in the Assembly, but Conservatives will now be able to protect their ballot line on September 15th, and offer a Conservative candidate to the voters on November 3rd.