Pelham Manor incumbent trustee Tim Case emerged victorious over challenger Ryan Kurtz following a recount concluded today by the Westchester County Board of Elections, winning re-election to the Board of Trustees by two votes, the same margin he held going into the review.
The recount also confirmed the re-election of Jennifer Monachino Lapey as mayor of the Village of Pelham Manor for a sixth two-year term. Lapey held a 20-vote lead over challenger Mark Cardwell going into the review. Deborah Winstead, who ran on the local Democratic party’s slate of candidates with Kurtz and Cardwell, notched the only win for the party, finishing first in the race for the two open trustee seats.
The final result, which is expected to be certified quickly, marks a new era in the history of Pelham Manor elections. Prior to the November 4 vote, the Manor had conducted its own elections in March. Last year, residents voted in favor of a proposal to shift the oversight of the village’s elections to Westchester County and change the timing to coincide with the state and federal standard of early November.
The historically close election shows that while local Democrats have gained strength in the Manor, which was long dominated by Republicans, they have not been able to replicate the success they have had in the Village of Pelham. Just a decade ago, Republicans enjoyed the advantage in the Manor’s northern neighbor. But the Village of Pelham has since been transformed into a stronghold for local Democrats, as evidenced by the lack of opposition that the current mayor and three trustees faced in last month’s election. Local Democrats also swept the town-wide offices up for grabs this year.
Not so in the Manor. The Democrats lost two close races, but secured one seat on the trustees board, courtesy of Winstead.
The laborious recount process began Tuesday morning in the offices of the county’s board of elections in White Plains. A board employee sat at one end of a table and began to read out the results of each ballot, one by one, before passing it to a colleague who held it up so that observers representing both candidates could see and affirm the results. Then the results were tabulated by two other board employees, under the watchful eye of yet another board representative, to make sure the results were recorded accurately.
In the morning, Tim Case sat at the table to observe the process. Beside him were Suzanne Berger of the Westchester County Democratic Committee and Caleb Persanis of Pelham, who tracked and recorded results. Village of Pelham Manor manager Lindsay Luft also came to observe. By late afternoon, the cast had changed. Case left, and James Castro-Blanco, who had worked with Pelham Manor candidates in the past, sat in as a deputy commissioner to observe the recount process. Tracy Shekane of the Pelham Manor Republicans dropped in. Allison Frost of the Pelham Democrats arrived, as did Ryan Kurtz. Luft also remained. By 6:30 PM all the ballots—close to 2,500—had been handled and read aloud.
Then the reconciliation process began. Discrepancies in the ballot counts had emerged, according to TJ Rogers, who–along with fellow board specialist Steven Casucci–supervised the recount. 
The board of election staff would now have to count the number of individual ballots themselves, by each of Pelham Manor’s five districts and by type—absentee ballots, early votes, machine votes and a few stray write-in votes. Given the amount of work that remained, Rogers dismissed the group at 8 PM.
Starting at 9:30 this morning, the reconciliation process resumed. Around 10:30, Rogers announced that two heretofore uncounted votes—one for case and the other for trustee DJ McLaughlin—had been discovered. Kurtz, who had arrived for the start, spelled it out for an observer: Case was now three votes ahead.
Case arrived late in the morning to hear the positive news. In what appeared to be the final hour of the recount—where the focus was on whether or not Case had received yet another uncounted vote—he and Kurtz sat beside each other at the ballot table, chatting amiably, bound together by the strange experience of having to wait for more than four weeks after the election to find out which one of them had won.
Then came a surprise. Rogers announced that a discrepancy between the number of votes cast and the number of ballots in hand, even accounting for blanks, raised the possibility that Kurtz’s vote tally had been undercounted by one and Case’s total overcounted by one. If this was the case, then the three-vote gap would shrink to one. Kurtz suddenly had a glimmer of hope, while Case asked someone to explain what was going on. Rather than keep everyone around while he sorted this issue, Rogers dismissed everyone for lunch and asked them to reconvene at 3 PM.
By then, Rogers had sorted out the discrepancies. He announced the news to the candidates: Case had won by two votes.
Afterwards, Kurtz issued a statement to the Examiner: “Congratulations to Mayor Jennifer Lapey and Trustee Tim Case on their re-election, and to my fantastic running mate Deborah Winstead on her election to Trustee. Kudos, too, to Mark Cardwell and DJ McLaughlin for a race well run. Credit is also due to Manor residents for shattering previous Village Election turnout numbers–fueled in no small part by the availability of early voting–and for electing three dedicated leaders.”
Billy Pontes • Dec 4, 2025 at 12:13 am
It’s a complete disgrace and a real miscarriage of democracy that this election took four weeks to resolve — that’s the real story here. The uncertainty was unacceptable. This wasn’t run locally — it was run by the County Board of Elections, people insisted that moving the election date would make everything “flawless” and “efficient.” Instead, we got an utter and miserable failure. Pelham Manor’s locally run elections have always been vastly more efficient and would never have produced a month of confusion, delay, and a postponed swearing-in. This outcome speaks for itself.
Ryan Kurtz • Dec 4, 2025 at 12:45 pm
Billy, as the candidate in this race who lost by two votes, I have a much different perspective. Is it annoying that it took so long? Sure. But, there was a really good reason.
Specifically, every single substantive decision and action was made by an even number of Democrats and Republicans whose professional training is in the proper conduct of elections. For example, the Commissioners had to gather to canvass, rule on, and count affidavit ballots. And that could only happen after internal staff investigation of the validity of affidavit ballots had concluded. In some cases, votes were thrown out because voters were not registered, in others allowed because on specific facts, registration out of Westchester did not bar voting. All decisions were made by bi-partisan Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners and subject to public scrutiny.
After all that, the spread was two votes. A manual recount was required. A room full of Democrats and Republicans counted and recounted. They concluded that the original count deprived Tim of a vote, and later that it gave him an extra vote. These errors netted to zero, but could have netted 2 or 3 votes.
When all is said and done, I can say without a shred of doubt, that I did in fact lose by two votes, and so can those who voted for me. We can have complete confidence in the outcome of this election. And, it didn’t cost the Manor a penny. Well worth it, I think.
Fred Gallo • Dec 10, 2025 at 5:40 pm
I see this as a success. I think the races were very close-the mayoral race was separated by 20 votes; for trustee the difference was just 2 votes. I think all candidates deserved thoughtful recounts. Unsure what the purported harm was. I didn’t see the candidates and incumbents complaining about an “utter and miserable failure” or “confusion.” Certainly there was transparency for the candidates (and the electorate if they so chose). That was a success for democracy in my opinion.