County voters split on issue
Erie County voters appear deadlocked on a law that would give the County Legislature the right to cancel government contracts that are signed by the county executive yet seem steeped in political favoritism.
Voters were almost evenly split in returns counted Tuesday evening. With 88 percent of the county’s election districts reporting, the proposition had 44,450 votes for approval and 44,076 votes against. The matter probably will be decided by the more than 5,000 absentee ballots that the county Board of Elections says have yet to be counted.
Legislators first proposed the law upon learning, during then-County Executive Joel A. Giambra’s reign, that they have little power when a county executive signs certain types of contracts with political friends.
The law would let the Legislature cancel such contracts, subject to a county executive’s veto.
But critics said the law, overly vague, would stigmatize Erie County. Companies would not want to deal with the county, critics say, for fear that their contracts could be canceled at the Legislature’s whim.
After several rewrites, lawmakers approved the law this year, after Chris Collins had taken office and sparred with them on a few matters. Collins vetoed the measure, but the Legislature’s Democrats overrode him.
The law required public approval because it would alter the balance of power between a county executive and the Legislature.
The referendum was on the flip side of the paper ballots used on this year’s new voting machines outside Buffalo. Many voters may have missed the question.
While about 125,000 voters cast ballots in the countywide races for sheriff and comptroller, some 88,000 registered an opinion on the referendum.
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