The Race is On

Putnam Legislator Mary Ellen Odell’s name will appear on the September 14 Republican primary ballot for Putnam County executive, having survived a challenge to her signatures by her opponent, State Senator Vincent Leibell. But according to a recent survey of likely GOP voters, Leibell holds a significant lead over Odell, even though large numbers of registered Republicans surveyed in a recent poll were still undecided.

Leibell, the Republican party’s endorsed candidate, challenged 500 of the 1,318 signatures submitted by Odell, who needed 1,000 valid signatures to remain on the GOP ballot.

The Putnam Board of Elections ruled last month that Odell had submitted sufficient signatures, after tossing 228 of them for a variety of reasons.

Leibell argued that additional signatures were false or invalid. The matter wound up in State Supreme Court, where Judge Francis Nicolai ordered attorneys for both sides to meet with the Board of Elections on Tuesday to continue reviewing the questionable signatures.

For more than six hours the process continued, and later in the day, both sides returned to court, where only three additional signatures were tossed out by the judge.

Attorney James Walsh then decided to withdraw the matter, allowing Odell’s name to appear on the ballot.

On Tuesday evening, Odell called the judge’s ruling: “One small step for Odell 2010 and one giant leap for the voters of Putnam County.”

Odell said the senator’s “full court press failed,” and disagreed with the notion that Leibell withdrew his challenge.“How do you surrender on a battle you already lost? They withdrew after they were knocked down on all counts,” she said.

Leibell told the COURIER that “no one failed. I wanted the court to review many defective signatures—signatures that should not have been counted. I wanted the court to learn firsthand how our Elections Commissioner Mr. [Anthony] Scannapieco wrongly collected petitions for my opponent and then reviewed them as Commissioner of Elections. This is totally outrageous and a conflict of interest. Light had to be shone on that.”

Leibell said he was satisfied with the judge’s ruling: “In 28 years in office, not a single one of my signatures has ever been thrown out.”

Odell said she was “taken aback by the unprecedented and costly effort he contrived in his attempt to ensure he would have no competition in the race for County Executive, much of which was at the expense of tax payers.”

Scannapieco thanked the court for “vindicating our office. The staff was vindicated. I was vindicated, as was my long-time fellow Commissioner Bob Bennett. We did our job to the best of our ability and have been unnecessarily attacked by Mr. Leibell.”

Odell and Leibell are battling to replace County Executive Robert Bondi who decided to retire in December.

While no Democrat is running for the position, the winner of next month’s primary will likely be a shoo-in for the position despite the fact that both candidates have minor party lines in the November election.