Published: November 20, 2007 12:59 am      

TOWN OF LOCKPORT: Write-in campaign a 'TAG' team effort

TOWN OF LOCKPORT — Taxpayers for Accountable Government won’t alter the bottom-line result of this year’s town elections but they still accomplished something relatively few candidates do: They got more than 100 people to write them in for town supervisor and town board member.

According to unofficial counts by the Niagara County Board of Elections on Monday, TAG organizer Donna Pieszala got 129 write-in votes for supervisor and supporters Jim Garlock and Joe Stewart received 132 and 122 write-in votes, respectively, for town board seats.

The official town ballot consisted almost entirely of unopposed candidates for office, including GOP supervisor Marc Smith, incumbent GOP board member Cheryl Antkowiak and GOP-endorsed newcomer Paul Siejak.

Results still have to be tallied in three election districts where the paper ballots are technically in question, according to the Board of Elections.

Pieszala, who helped started TAG to oppose single-party rule in the town, said she’s pleased with the effort. TAG launched a last-minute advertising blitz opposing a local proposition to increase the supervisor’s term of office and encouraged write-in of non-GOP-blessed residents for public offices.

The term proposition was defeated overwhelmingly, and TAG endorsees fetched far more write-in votes than candidates for local office typically do.

“Not bad for six days’ work,” Pieszala said.

Smith, who has been the subject of individual TAG members’ ire for multiple reasons, thinks TAG is the town’s “anti-Wal-Mart group” by another name. While write-in campaigning sounds like democracy at its best, he said, TAG essentially ran a political campaign that dodged the legal standards formal candidates are held to.

“It’s great that you can write people in ... but unfortunately, you don’t have the same financial reporting requirements as (listed) candidates. They don’t have to show who they are or where they’re getting their money from,” Smith said. “If they did, you’d see it’s the anti-Wal-Mart group, and I think people would see them in a different light.”

Absentee ballots cast in town races were not counted Monday, but Pieszala doesn’t expect those ballots will add anything to the TAG write-in counts. Most people probably obtained and completed their ballots before TAG rolled out its write-in campaign, she said.

Absentee ballots were opened and counted from the Town of Cambria this past Friday. In a close race between Democrat Joe Ohol and incumbent Republican town board member Matthew Foe, each received 13 absentee votes. Ohol thus remains the winner — and is the first Democrat elected to a town office in more than 40 years.

Contact reporter Joyce Miles at 439-9222, ext. 6245.