Greenport to hand-count ballots for village election

Greenport will hand-count paper ballots for its March 2027 village election after trustees unanimously approved the change Thursday, Jan. 22.

The Suffolk County Board of Elections announced last October announced it would no longer rent machines to villages, school districts, fire districts and libraries, forcing Greenport to find an alternative.

At a work session last week, Village Clerk Candace Hall pushed for hand-counting over three other options: allowing the county to run village elections; accepting free, outdated machines from the board of elections; or purchasing new machines for $12,000 to $15,000.

“I am recommending that we move forward with hand counting or canvassing our ballots moving forward for the next election in the village,” Ms. Hall told trustees on Jan. 15. “The reason that I am recommending this is, first and foremost, cost.”

The village currently budgets around $7,000 annually for elections, including machine rental, ballots and election inspector pay. 

The cost of returning to hand-counting ballots is “relatively low,” and nowhere near the cost of purchasing machines, Ms. Hall said. The village, however, will need to purchase sealed ballot boxes and hire election inspectors, but will be able to print its own ballots.

Ms. Hall said the village has practical reasons beyond cost. In the election last March, only about 350 ballots were cast out of approximately 2,500 residents. The voting machines also only note that there is a write-in candidate, not who it is for. As a result, those ballots were hand-counted late in the evening anyway.

Planning Board Chair Patricia Hammes led the way with 118 write-in ballots in that election. 

“We are capable of doing this work,” Ms. Hall said. “Our community has grown accustomed to getting results the same day, which is something specific to village elections.”

She added that several other villages across Long Island have been hand-counting ballots already.

Allowing the county to run village elections would come at no cost, but Ms. Hall said “the village has a long history of conducting our own election.”

“You lose a sense of control. I think you lose, also, a sense of identity. This is a village election,” village attorney Jared Kasschau said.

“If you’re instead switching from those machines to a manual canvas and ballots, you can print out the ballots that are going to be used on election day,” said Mr. Kasschau. “You don’t have to purchase them from a printer at an expensive cost. It’s all very well manageable, especially for a village of this size and based on the turnout numbers.”

Deputy Mayor Patrick Brennan said the move is “sensible.” Trustee Mary Bess Phillips added that the machines can be faulty at times. 

“I’ve got no interest in an old, antiquated machine,” Mayor Kevin Stuessi said. 

Ms. Hall was recently commended by the New York State Conference of Mayors for her previous handling of the village’s 2025 election.