IN RE: John M. ABRAHAM (2007)

Petitioner commenced this proceeding seeking, inter alia, to invalidate the designating petition of Paul T. Bumbalo (respondent) for the office of Town Justice for the Town of Lancaster in the Democratic primary election to be held on September 18, 2007.   Contrary to the contention of respondent, Supreme Court properly granted the petition on the ground that his designating petition did not contain the requisite number of signatures.  “Essential to the integrity of the [designating] petition process is the subscribing witness's statement authorized by Election Law § 6-132 and particularly that portion of it which contains the total number of signatures on the petition sheet” (Matter of Jonas v. Velez, 65 N.Y.2d 954, 955, 493 N.Y.S.2d 1019, 483 N.E.2d 1151).   Here, four sheets of the designating petition contain uninitialed and unexplained alterations to the statements of the subscribing witness, and thus the court properly determined that the signatures on those sheets were invalid (see Matter of Quinlin v. Pierce, 254 A.D.2d 690, 678 N.Y.S.2d 417).   In addition, a fifth sheet of the designating petition contains uninitialed and unexplained alterations of the dates on certain signature lines from “6/15/07” to “7/15/07” and, under the circumstances of this case, we cannot say that those alterations were “inconsequential” (Matter of Sternberg v. Hill, 269 A.D.2d 730, 731, 711 N.Y.S.2d 512).

It is hereby ORDERED that the order so appealed from be and the same hereby is unanimously affirmed without costs.

MEMORANDUM: