Spin Cycle

As reported, there have been a number of spearate on-the-record statements from people in the Roy Simon campaign and other Democrats about irregular polling-place encounters, centered on his maverick run against Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos.

Nicole Simon, the candidate’s daughter, was among them, and the term ‘harassment’ -- which we used to summarize her description from Election Day -- drew a call from Joseph Koller, a GOP poll inspector at the George Washington School in West Hempstead.

Koller said she at first was told she was supposed to be 100 feet from the polling place, but expressed belief she thought the law said 100 feet from the voting machines. He said new inspectors on the scene called police on the basis that she did not wish to move “to where she was supposed to.” He said he went and got election bylaws and showed her the citations.

One of the first police officers was not as diplomatic as he could have been, he suggested, and discussion involved the layout of the place and how the parking lot led into the school. In sum, Koller said he saw no real harassment.

Simon’s account, which she gave us Friday, does not necessarily contradict Koller's account -- as far as what he would have seen. She said she did not know she was not allowed put up a sign outside the polls, a custodian came out, angrily tore down the signs. She went inside, asked about who was in charge at the poll site, and the person there was “nice and civil, unlike the custodian.” After moving outside to a lawful place to hand out leaflets she was joined by a man handing out flyers “who was clearly a big Skelos fan.”

“Within minutes a bunch of guys showed up in a BMW … playing loud music. They told me I have to leave. I said ‘who are you’ and one of them said he was from the Board of Elections,” she said. When asked for ID, the men said they’d left theirs at home, she said. An older man approached and asked her to leave “sweetly,” which she declined, she said. At one point a police officer who told her to leave was “chummy” with the group. When challenged on the 100-foot rule she said another officer ended up walking off the distance and marking it with chalk. Simon, who’s 26 and about five feet tall, said at one point “they tried saying” she was “threatening the teachers.”

At the West Hempstead public library, her voting place, where she joined her father, the younger Simon said she was challenged by police as to her right to be there, she said. She said while there she was followed downstairs to the polls. She said she was told she was in the wrong place. “I said no, I was 100 percent confident I was in the right place. The whole line was watching this…”

Meanwhile, a reader asks rhetorically: "Does handing out Obama flyers, buttons, and bumper stickers count as electioneering in front of the Franklin Avenue School in Hempstead on election day? I know that other people saw the same thing that I did in fact the police were sitting right there watching. There are two sides to every story."