A do-over election for a Oakland Borough Council seat that ended in a tie last November has been scheduled for Tuesday, March 10, with Republican incumbent Kevin Slasinski facing off against independent Matthew Dumpert.
A legal contest fraught with delays had one last waiting period when it took embattled Superior Court Judge Kelly Conlon five days to sign a consent order.
Local officials moved more quickly than Conlon, designing and printing vote-by-mail ballots and mailing them yesterday. A ballot drawing was held last week.
Conlon rejected a ballot cast by a 30-year-old woman who lives in Chicago with her husband but votes out of her parents’ home in Oakland.
At a trial last month, the woman declined to testify – she had indicated an intention to exercise her Fifth Amendment privilege – and Conlon instead heard testimony from the woman’s parents as to their daughter’s political leanings. Conlon used her clairvoyant skills to determine who the woman voted for and dropped the vote – bringing the race to a tie.  (Over 300 voters in Oakland did not vote in the council race, but Conlon never considered that possibility.
Last year, it took Conlon ten days to hold a hearing to get a recount of the tied election, and then more than a week to actually recount the ballots. Conlon ordered a brief to outline reasons why an error in the count might have been made, an event that doesn’t really matter since the result was a tie.
The last day to register to vote for the March 10 election is February 17.