School District Vote
Governor Andrew Cuomo today issued an executive order changing the deadline for ballots in school elections. Ballots can now be counted if they are postmarked by June 16. If ballots are hand delivered, however, the rules are the same as before: they must be received before 5 p.m. on Tuesday, June 9. You can read about it in the Times Union: "Deadline for school election ballots extended by mail to June 16."
The Hudson City School District previously announced it will have five secure ballot boxes, monitored by school representatives, at five locations on Monday, June 8, and Tuesday, June 9, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- John L. Edwards School, 360 State Street
- Hudson Jr./Sr. High School, Event Entrance, 215 Harry Howard Avenue
- Central Fire Station, 77 North Seventh Street
- A. B. Shaw Firehouse, 6 Route 23, Claverack
- Greenport Community Center, 500 Town Hall Drive, Greenport
The Board of Education is holding a meeting at 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 9. In the past, the purpose of the meeting at 9 o'clock on school election day was to report the results of the vote. This year, it is acknowledged on the HCSD website that the results available that night may not be definitive: "This meeting will give an update on voting results. Due to absentee ballot voting, the results may not be available immediately." Now, given that ballots must be counted if they are postmarked by June 16, it will be more than a week before the results of the vote will be known.
COPYRIGHT 2020 CAROLE OSTERINK
This is simple. The HCSD BOE is not allowed to release preliminary results on June 9 anymore. The Executive Order extends voting through a postmark of June 16, so prelim results are a unique but useful way of voter suppression - one way or the other. However, due to the ongoing weekend the HCSD has not updated its website which is critical to democracy being carried out or not. I guess of all the 392 employees at the District and the 75 who make more than 90k, no-one can be on website call. And they wonder why homework is not done on weekends. I will change this one day, I promise. Anyway for now, this is why your vote matters. If you vote yes or you don't vote, you are going to get a whopper of a bill that none of us can afford right now. Help families first by saving their family finances first then help us all send the kids back to school safely first. One step at a time. The HCSD wants $51 million of your dollars---you got extra change for this now? WOW! NO! The HCSD cannot release prelim results this Tuesday. It must suffer the fate of time and further transparency like all public institutions. Check on their website to see when they show up for work on Monday. Voters have been watching all weekend. VOTE NO! Ken Sheffer
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