Nassau County District Attorney's Office investigating allegations of election fraud in Hempstead school trustee vote
Hempstead school board trustee Victor Pratt's win in the May 19 election has been questioned by school officials. Credit: Jeff Bachner
The Nassau County District Attorney’s Office confirmed Thursday that it has opened an investigation into allegations of election fraud in the May vote for an open seat on the Hempstead school board.
The school district has said a new election for the trustee position would be held on Aug. 17.
The DA's office began reviewing the fraud allegations after Hempstead school officials referred findings from an internal report that found April Keys, the district clerk in charge of the election, conspired to keep incumbent Victor Pratt, her favored candidate, in office.
Austin Graff, a school district attorney appointed to investigate the alleged misconduct, found Keys failed to safeguard election materials and could not explain how ripped-up cast ballots ended up in a garbage bag recovered by Graff and Anthony Fasano, another attorney working for the Hempstead district, on May 26.
The ripped-up votes found in the garbage included support for both Pratt and another candidate, Gwendolyn Jackson, according to Graff’s report.
Keys’ attorney, Jerald Carter, denied the allegations against his client and said she would fully cooperate with any investigation to clear her name.
“My client has absolutely nothing to hide. She did absolutely nothing wrong,” Carter said Thursday. “She had no interest in whatever candidate won that election. She did not conspire with anybody to alter the results of the election.”
Carter questioned why votes for Pratt would be torn if his client, as alleged, favored him to win the election.
Carter also said the district took the keys to the district clerk’s office away from his client on May 22, meaning that the bag “that supposedly had evidence in it was unattended” from May 22 to May 26, he said.
Graff in his report said officials on May 22, a Friday, ordered the office locked down and locks changed but a locksmith did not come until May 26, the Tuesday after Memorial Day.
Pratt could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Other than confirming the investigation, Nicole Turso, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, declined to comment further Thursday.
Ballot disparity questioned
Pratt ran for reelection on May 19. He was challenged by three other candidates: Jackson, Eugenia Girtman and Caprice Rines.
Initial results had indicated that Pratt was the winner after absentee and early mail ballots were counted. But the school board declined to certify the results due to what they considered an unusual disparity in the number of absentee and early mail ballots cast for Pratt compared with the other candidates.
Graff wrote in his report, which was submitted to the school board, that he believed Keys’ alleged misconduct "changed the outcome" of the vote. The attorney said he suspected the extent of the "potentially criminal conduct" may never be fully known.
Fasano filed an appeal in June, asking state Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa to invalidate the trustee election results. Rosa last week voided those results and ordered a new election, to be supervised by Neil Boyle, district superintendent for the Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES.
Boyle set the revote for Aug. 17 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. at ABGS Middle School. The open seat is for a three-year term. On the ballot will be the same candidates as in May, according to the district.
The district did not challenge the result of the budget vote, which was approved 463-141.
“There was no evidence of any attack or attempt to influence the budget voting results as there was with the trustee election results,” Ron Edelson, of the district’s public relations firm, ZE Creative Communications, wrote in a statement Thursday.
He added: “The tallies from the machine votes when compared to the tallies from the early voting/absentee ballot tallies were consistent, in stark contrast to those results in the trustee election.”
Voters can find more information on absentee and early mail ballots for the revote on the district website.
Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.
