Albany

As public pressure mounts to toss the results of Tuesday's successful high school vote, school officials say they will not put the $180 million renovation plan back on the ballot.

The turnout of nearly 7,900 voters was the second largest ever for a school vote in the city, district officials said. The plan passed by 189 votes.

The vote, held three months after a more costly version of the project failed by 92 votes, was plagued with problems from open to close — with some polling locations opening late and at least seven running out of ballots midday due to higher-than-anticipated turnout.

"The level of engagement and interest in this project was terrific, and I think that's actually the big story here," said school board President Kenny Bruce. "Our community came out, supported the project and were engaged — even if they were opposed to the project."

Despite reports of questionable voting practices — like unguarded paper ballots and some voters being asked to sign their names to ballots — Bruce insisted the vote was fair and said he would feel the same way if the outcome hadn't been in the district's favor.

Bruce apologized to voters who encountered problems, including those who left without voting in the face of long lines or delays while the district printed and delivered more ballots to places that had run out.

"The problems with polling locations throughout the city were unacceptable," he said. "I know people were angry about that and we're angry about that, too. The Board of Education is making it a priority in the next few weeks to find out what went wrong and to create a structure that ensures that it never happens again."

One way to avoid problems with school votes in the future, he said, would be to outsource the job to the Albany County Board of Elections, which handled the high school vote as part of the general election in November. School budget votes, school board elections and school bond votes are typically handled by the school district.

Opponents plan to challenge Tuesday's results. County Comptroller Michael Conners said he has a list of at least a dozen potential plaintiffs willing to join a lawsuit, which he said would most likely be filed in federal court under the Voting Rights Act.

"There are enough people that have called me, texted me and sent me emails who are surprisingly eager to be a part of it," said Conners, a Menands resident who might not have the standing to sue himself. "I've talked to some pretty good election lawyers, and the discussion and the recommendation is to pursue it in federal court under the Voting Rights Act."

Bruce said he doesn't see how anyone would have grounds to challenge the results in federal court, since nobody was turned away from voting and no one segment of voters was inconvenienced more than another.

The problems Tuesday were citywide and unintentional, he said.

Under state education law, district residents can appeal an election outcome to the state education commissioner, who may annul the vote or order a new election.

But that generally only happens if residents can prove that the outcome of the election would have been different had irregularities not occurred, said Jay Worona, deputy executive director and general counsel for the New York State School Boards Association.

"At the end of the day, what districts really want to secure is confidence on the part of the public," he said. "If the general population or electorate believes that something was procedurally irregular — or worse yet, nefarious — then people lose confidence in the system and that's something that would be very long lasting and very sad."

The state Education Department declined to comment Wednesday, citing the possibility of an appeal.

Among the issues that opponents are considering pursuing in a federal lawsuit are the district's alleged failure to secure paper emergency ballots cast at overwhelmed polling sites, violations of the secret balloting process, long lines caused by the failure to produce enough ballots and the use of poll workers who were not properly trained to deal with the problems that arose.

County Legislator Christopher Higgins, who practices election law, said he was required to write his name on the white envelope his emergency ballot was placed in, effectively allowing poll workers opening ballots at Hackett Middle School to know how voters voted.

"I said, 'This is illegal,' and they said, 'This is the only way we're going to accept your ballot,'" said Higgins, who supports building the new school. "The integrity of the whole election in my opinion should be called in question. Am I happy about the outcome? Absolutely. But I'm deeply disturbed by how we arrived at the outcome."

Higgins pointed specifically to provisions of education law that require districts to furnish "a sufficient supply of the ballots for the use of the qualified voters" and to provide for a way to ensure voters can "conceal" their choices.

"They totally, totally blew it," Higgins said. "I cannot believe some of the stuff that I'm hearing happened."

Things got so bad at one point that county Elections Commissioner Rachel Bledi said she volunteered to try to help bring the packed polling place at Mater Christi school under control.

Bledi said she was on her way to vote at the Albany School of Humanities but stopped at Mater Christi after hearing reports of significant voting problems.

"I have never, ever in my life seen anything like it," said Bledi, the former Republican chairwoman in the county. "Some people think that it was intentionally mishandled in order to suppress 'no' votes, and other people look at it as gross incompetence. Either way, something went terribly wrong and it needs to be addressed."

A website, www.albanytaxpayers.org, was anonymously registered Tuesday to urge voters to share their stories of voting problems.

More Information Library ballots alter total The Albany school district on Wednesday adjusted the unofficial margin of victory on the $180 million high school plan to 189 - down from 228 - after realizing some votes cast at Arbor Hill/West Hill library were inadvertently counted multiple times, a spokesman said. Rather than 252 votes initially reported as cast there, or 162-90 in favor, the actual total was 117 - or 75-42 in favor, spokesman Ron Lesko said. The change shrank the margin of victory by 39 votes. Lesko said it wasn't immediately clear at what point in the tallying process the mix-up happened and noted the 189-vote margin remains unofficial. The district is not aware of any other errors, he said. Beverly Padgett, a poll worker at the library, alerted the Times Union to the discrepancy after noticing the total number of votes exceeded the 150 ballots they were given to start the day. Lesko said the district discovered the error "as part of the typical review of the results." Of the total, 105 votes were cast on the machine, with the remaining 12 being paper and absentee ballots, Lesko said. The new unofficial citywide tally is 3,974 to 3,785 in favor. - Jordan Carleo-Evangelist See More Collapse

Conners, who funded mailers and robocalls opposing the referendum, has taken criticism from project boosters because he does not live in the city.

His campaign account had $22,000 in it as of the middle of last month.

"Whether I live in Menands or not doesn't stop me from being county comptroller," Conners said, adding that the county has a direct financial interest in the city school district's failure to properly educate kids.

"A significant portion of the people that the school system loses wind up either wards of the county at the jail or on public assistance," Conners said, "and we need to have something dramatically better done than the outcomes that have been provided by the Albany school district."

bbump@timesunion.com • 518-454-5387 • @bethanybump jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com • 518-454-5445 • @JCEvangelist_TU