The results are in, and it’s now official — Sally Pope and Andrea Schiavoni, Democrats both — have won their seats as Southampton Town councilperson and town justice, respectively.
A mandatory machine recount was ordered after election night results left Pope in the lead over Republican incumbent Dan Russo by just 740 votes. Late Friday afternoon, the official results of that recount — which gave Pope an 832 vote margin — were sent to new Southampton Town board member, Sally Pope. Pope said Russo’s lawyer decided not to challenge the results and Pope was declared the winner.
After Election Day, the two candidates also had to await results from town absentee ballots. The official numbers came in on Friday — 12,582 votes for Remsenburg resident Pope and 11,750 for Russo, who resides in East Quogue. Pope earned 11,025 votes from registered Democrats and 1,009 from Independence party voters while Russo had 10,269 votes from Republicans and 1,481 from registered Conservatives. Another 548 votes came in for Pope from The Working Families Party, who endorsed her.
Russo was appointed to the town board earlier this year and replaced the seat vacated by councilwoman Linda Kabot when she was elected supervisor.
Now that she has won, Pope said she is looking forward to the experience of being part of the Southampton Town Board.
“As one of my first tasks, I want to look at how we perform and how we manage with scarcer resources,” Pope said.
As her first duty as an elected official, Pope said she will attend a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new store in Hampton Bays this Saturday, called Geek Hampton.
January 5 will be the first organizational meeting for Pope who says she is busy collecting information for that date.
Schiavoni, a Sag Harbor resident, ran against Westhampton incumbent Republican Tom DeMayo for the town justice position. Earlier this fall, DeMayo challenged Schiavoni to primary races for the Working Families, Independence and Conservative parties endorsement. DeMayo won the Conservative party line, which had previously been given to Schiavoni while Schiavoni took the other two endorsements.
By last Friday, with all the absentee votes counted, Schiavoni led DeMayo by 3,257 votes totaling 13,974 to DeMayo’s 10,717. Of those votes for Schiavoni, 11,733 came from registered Democrats, 1,462 came from Independence voters and 599 from the Working Families party. DeMayo gained 9,392 votes from registered Republicans and 1,325 from Conservative Party voters.
Schiavoni will take her seat on January 1.
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