Two candidates to serve on the Great Neck Library board have filed a legal complaint against the library and their opponents, citing concerns of the legitimacy of absentee ballots that have not yet been counted.
Trustee candidates Jessica Hughes and Christina Rusu filed the complaint on Nov. 7, a week after the election.
The two previously filed objections to halt the count of 37 proxy ballots, according to board President Liman Mimi Hu and Rory Lancman, both candidates in the election.
A total of 24 of the objected proxy votes were sent by individuals with East Asian or South Asian surnames, Lancman said. The counting of the votes is frozen until a court hearing scheduled for Nov. 16.
Hu is running to retain her seat on the board against Hughes while Lancman, Rusu and Karen Hirsch-Romero are running in an at-large election for a vacant seat on the board in a race marked by culture war issues.
Sara Khodadadian is running against Kim Schader for an expiring seat on the library’s nominating committee.
Both seats on the board have four-year terms while the committee seat is a three-year term.
Hu, Hirsch-Romero, Lancman, Khodadadian and Schader were all listed as respondents in the legal complaint.
The library’s method for issuing, reviewing, distributing, processing and preserving absentee ballots should be analyzed to ensure it was proper, according to the complaint.
More than 3,000 in-person votes were tallied at the election machines on Monday from 10 a.m.- 10 p.m. while more than 330 proxy votes were submitted to the library, according to court documents.
They said the machines’ results showed that Hughes led Hu by 250 votes, Rusu led Lancman by more than 150 votes and Khodadadian led Kim Schader by more than 190 votes.
Lancman and Hu, in a statement, said the approximate 300 proxy ballots that were counted as of Wednesday night resulted in Lancman leading by 22 votes, Hu’s deficit being reduced to 28 votes and Schader’s deficit reduced to 18 votes.
“This lawsuit is a slap in the face to voters, Library users, taxpayers, and the Library’s professional staff.” Lancman and Hu said. “It is an extension of the vitriolic, disrespectful, scorched earth campaign which has been waged both in this election and, truth be told, against our civic institutions.”
Lancman told Blank Slate Media that the slate of candidates who filed the objections are attempting to prevent the votes from being counted. Their actions, he said, reflect the efforts of those trying to stop the vote count during the 2020 presidential election.
“These folks are mirrors of Trump in so many ways, including how they’re handling the election results,” Lancman said. “We’re seeing that here.. Another example of Trumpism in Great Neck. They want to block the counting of the perfectly legitimate and well-known process of mail-in ballots.”
“If the legitimate ballots are counted, I’ll win and Mimi and Kim will have made up the difference,” Lancman said.
Hughes and Rusu, in a joint statement, said their opponents have made several false statements regarding the challenges since the election took place and that they want an independent arbiter to verify the mail-in ballots submitted.
They also said none of the challenges made were based on racial or ethnic grounds.
“Both sides have challenged the proxy ballots,” the statement said. “All challenges were applied in a consistent manner that had nothing to do with voter names or personal information. Allegations of racial or ethnic discrimination in the challenges are unseemly at best and defamatory at worst.”
The challenges made by the two included ballots that had non-original signatures or no signature at all, incorrect dates and handwritten or no time stamps, according to court documents.
“We believe every vote counts,” Hughes and Rusu said. “We also know that the process needs to be vigorously defended so that no voter feels disenfranchised. We will not stand down nor be bullied into silence.”
A petition to immediately count all of the votes has circulated throughout the Great Neck community, receiving more than 1,000 signatures.
Peninsula resident Sabine Margolis started the petition and criticized Hughes and Rusu for launching the legal complaint against the library and other candidates in the election.
“It is sad to see that candidates Hughes and Rusu, who vowed to be stewards of the library and our community, have resorted to bleeding out its funds in an unfounded lawsuit,” the petition reads.
The race has been reflective of the national culture wars, centered on banning or restricting books, primarily related to LGBTQ.
Hu said the placement of certain books is at the discretion of library professionals, touted the importance of “intellectual freedom” and said she is against banning books.
Hughes said the question did not center around censorship, but rather promoting “divisive and exclusionary” content. Library officials, she said, should respond to parental input so they can best serve their community.
Rusu said coming from a communist country gave her an insight into what censorship is and said she does not believe in banning books.
Lancman, a former state Assemblyman and New York City councilman who said he is running to oppose a national trend to pull books from library shelves for political reasons, also said banning books has “no place” in Great Neck and that no library should be restricting content to individuals because it may make them feel uncomfortable.
The library district stretches from the Great Neck peninsula to North New Hyde Park and is comprised of the Main Library on Bayview Avenue along with the Lakeville, Parkville and Station branches.