By RICK MILLER
Olean Star
LITTLE VALLEY — The Salamanca mayoral race remains too close to call and all ballots will be manually-counted next week, a Cattaraugus County elections commissioner said on Thursday.
On Election Night, Mayor Sandra Magiera trailed challenger Michael R. “Smitty” Smith by 17 votes, 742 to 725.
Following the counting of any absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day and received by Tuesday, and any affidavits and military ballots, Magiera received 620 votes on the Democratic line and 124 votes on the Citizens Choice Party line for an unofficial total of 744 votes.
Smith, who ran on the independent Salamanca Proud line, received 752 votes, according to the Board of Elections totals, which remain unofficial until the hand count next week. He was mayor from 2017 to 2021 and had endorsed Magiera when she first ran for the city’s top office.
Magiera, who is seeking a fourth two-year term, has whittled away at Smith’s 17-vote lead, but still trails by eight votes.
State Election Law calls for a manual recount of ballots when the results are less than ½ of 1% of the total votes cast. In this case, there were a total of 1,495 votes cast.
Democratic Elections Commissioner Kevin Burleson said the Board of Elections will hand count the Salamanca mayoral race beginning next Tuesday.
In the City of Olean, the Ward 3 election to succeed Alderwoman Jessica Forney, a Republican, will also be subject to a manual recount.
Gloria Rosenthal received 276 votes on the Democrat and Common Sense party lines to 261 for Balazs Busznyak, who had 261 votes on the Republican line.
Olean Common Council President Lawrence “JR” Bennion, R-Ward 1, was re-elected without opposition.
And in Ward 5, where Democrat John Crawford did not seek re-election, Anne Marie Sitter-Tompkins was elected without opposition on the Democrat and Working Families Party lines.
In Salamanaca, Smith said, “I found running as an independent a little more difficult than I thought it would be. If I had sought the Republican endorsement it probably would have been a different race,” Smith told the Olean Star Thursday afternoon.
Smith refused to claim victory with an eight-vote lead going into a hand count of ballots. “I don’t want to say anything. It would be like picking up your equipment at the bottom of the ninth inning,” he explained using a baseball analogy.
He added: “I’d rather be ahead by eight votes than behind by eight. Until they (Board of Elections) say who won and lost, I don’t want to jinx it.”
Only one of Smith’s fellow Salamanca Proud candidates,
Lee Chapman DeBoy in Ward 4 appears to have won a Common Council seat. The unofficial results show DeBoy with 144, incumbent Democrat Michael Reed has 123 votes and Kyle Waite has 37 votes on the Good Direction Party line.
Two incumbent aldermen — including Reed — lost their re-election bids and two appear to have been re-elected, according to unofficial results.
In Ward 3, incumbent Barry Smith, a Republican, lost his re-election bid. He had 41 votes to 69 votes for Matthew Quigley on the Ward 3 Party line and Dylan Hackett on the Salamanca Proud line, who had 66 votes.
Ward 2 Alderman Kylee Johnson had 237 votes on the Democrat and Citizens Choice party lines to 200 for Brian Murphy on the Salamanca Proud line.
Ward 5 Alderman Paul Myers has 169 votes on the Democrat and Citizens Choice lines to 134 for Zachary Taylor on the Salamanca Proud line.
In Ward 1, where incumbent John Hill did not seek re-election, Republican and Citizens Choice candidate Maureen Puval got 126 votes to 74 for Joanne Hoag.
Discover more from Olean Star
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
