MONTICELLO - Village of Monticello Mayor Gary Sommers and trustee Carmen Rue have filed a lawsuit against the Sullivan County Board of Elections and its two commissioners, Lori Benjamin and Cora Edwards - after election results on Tuesday showed Deputy Mayor George Nikolados in the lead for Mayor and Michael Banks in the lead for one of the two trustee seats.
Sommers is trailing Nikolados by 240 votes in the race for Mayor and 12-year incumbent Rue was trailing both trustee candidates Banks and Michael Greco, the write-in candidate. David Komatz thus far is in fourth. The four are battling for two seats on the Village of Monticello board.
The suit alleges that Sommers and Rue hand delivered 320 absentee ballot applications to the BOE office in August but that the BOE failed to then mail many of them. The pair allege that only 120 to 150 ballot applications were properly mailed out.
Sommers and Rue are calling for a two week extension for the BOE to certify the election to remedy the alleged problem.
The case is before State Supreme Court Justice Julius Schreibman this Friday - the same day as the absentee ballot count.
The SullivanTimes late Wednesday reached out to both Sommers and Nikolados for comment and will update this story Wednesday morning. DEVELOPING
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