The Village of Pelham Manor succeeded Tuesday in delaying enforcement of a state court order that it must hold a referendum on moving the village’s election date.

In legal terms, the Appellate Division’s Second Department refused to vacate an automatic hold on the order that took effect as soon as Pelham Manor appealed the state Supreme Court ruling that called for the referendum. State law provides for such automatic stays in appeals by local governments. As a result, the petition calling for the ballot proposition will not be certified by the village and sent to the Westchester Board of Elections during Pelham Manor’s appeal.

Those petitioning for the new election date had requested the appeals court find the automatic stay didn’t apply in this case.

At the same time, the four-judge panel agreed to an expedited hearing of the appeal, with briefs and responses due between Aug. 20 and Aug. 28, according to the order from the appeals court.

The appellate justices provided no reasons for their rulings on the various motions.

In the appeal, Pelham Manor is seeking to reverse state Supreme Court Judge Linda Jamieson’s decision on July 30 that a referendum on changing the village’s election day must be put on the ballot Nov. 5. Jamieson rejected all of the reasons Pelham Manor Village Clerk Lindsey Luft (who is also village manager) gave for ruling invalid the 801-signature petition calling for the public vote.

Erica Winter, an organizer of the Committee to Move the Manor Village Election, delivered the petition on July 1 to Luft, who in her role as village clerk reviewed and rejected the petition four days later, on July 5. Winter and Pelham Democratic Town Committee Chairwoman Allison Frost brought suit July 8 against Luft, the Pelham Manor Board of Trustees and the Westchester Board of Elections seeking to reverse Luft’s decision.

Winter and Frost won their case, prompting Pelham Manor’s appeal on Aug. 2. The five-member all-Republican village board is opposed to the referendum’s goal of shifting Pelham Manor elections from the third Tuesday in March to election day in November.

With the state deadline for ballot propositions of Aug. 5 having expired, it’s not clear whether or not Pelham Manor can run out the clock on the petition via the appeals process. If the appeals court had vacated the stay, as Winter and Frost had asked in their motion, then the petition would have been sent to the board of elections for placement of the referendum on the ballot while the appeal moved forward.

On the day of the deadline, Frost said, “The Aug. 5, 2024 deadline does not deprive the courts of jurisdiction to place our referendum on the ballot.”

The next day, Kathleen McGrath, director of public relations for the New York State Board of Elections, said, “There could possibly be circumstances where perhaps a court would order such relief. There are far too many different fact patterns that could influence such hypotheticals, so we would not be comfortable commenting on them even broadly.”

Also in Tuesday’s decision, the appellate court refused Winter and Frost’s motion to dismiss an appeal of Jamieson’s ruling brought by Westchester Republican Election Commissioner Douglas Colety, who supported Pelham Manor’s position during  the original case.

The appellate division justices hearing the appeal are Justices Joseph Maltese, Deborah Dowling, Janice Taylor and Lourdes Ventura.

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