Village Grande residents Paul and Andrea Pitluk say working the polls during elections, as they had for the past six years, was nothing more than a call to civic duty, and not political.##M:[more]##
But the retired couple — Paul was a dean of students in New York City and Andrea was an editor at the World Almanac — say removal from the list of poll workers this past election was a matter of politics, and left them questioning the non-partisan form of government in West Windsor. “I really think the two-party system is at stake here,” Paul said.
The issue stems from an incident that occurred in the special election of November, 2006, pitting Barbara Pfeifer against Will Anklowitz. As they worked the polls at Dutch Neck School Stephen Shueh, son of Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh (who spells his name phonetically) came to vote. The couple say Shueh, right off-the-bat, told them he wasn’t sure where he was supposed to vote because he had just moved to Montgomery. As soon as Shueh began talking to the couple regarding his situation, Charles Morgan, a poll watcher for the Anklowitz campaign, they say, called a newspaper reporter.
“Certainly there’s some ethics question there,” Andrea said. “Rather than solve the problem, he called a reporter.”
Later in the day, Shueh returned, saying that Montgomery poll workers did not have his name on the list and sent him back. Again, the poll workers consulted with election officials and decided to take a vote, and since Shueh’s license had him listed as a West Windsor resident and Montgomery did not have him on record, Democrat and Republican poll workers unanimously decided to allow Shueh to vote there.
When the couple filled out their paperwork for working the polls this year, they indicated ahead of time they were unable to work the primaries because they were going to be away, but that they were available to work the other three elections. Three weeks ago, they heard from fellow poll workers that they had received their polling assignments, but the Pitluks still hadn’t received theirs.
Curiously, they called the polling organizer John Roeder, husband of Rae Roeder, the Democratic Party chair in West Windsor, who told them that they would not be working the polls because a complaint was made against them regarding the Shueh incident. When they asked who complained, they said he told them he could not tell them. The couple called the board of elections, where officials said they didn’t know anything about the situation. So the couple decided to call Rae Roeder.
After they were unsuccessful in reaching her, they said they decided to call Rae’s mother. Paul said he left one message, and after getting no response, Andrea called her mother and left a message indicating she felt she was being blacklisted and that she would appreciate a call back, she said.
When she finally got in touch with her, Andrea said Roeder told her there were already too many poll workers (even though the couple say they had heard from others that East Windsor had a shortage of poll workers last week and they were not contacted to fill in), and she hung up on her.
“This is not proper conduct, I think, for the leader of the Democratic Party in West Windsor,” Andrea said.
When contacted for the story, the Pitluks said they wanted to move on and want to leave the incident behind them. They did say they felt they were “blacklisted” because of politics, because the issue involved the mayor’s son.
“I understand I have a right to vote; I don’t have a right to be a poll worker,” said Paul. But they say they wonder what the incident, if it was politics, means for the nonpartisan government in West Windsor.
“One should ask the question — is it a Democratic party we have here or is it an arm of the Republican Party?” Paul said in reference to Morgan’s affiliation as a Republican.
In response, Morgan said that speaking as a Republican and with Rae Roeder as the head of one of the state’s biggest unions, their accusations were not true. Instead, he said, they violated their oaths as poll workers and violated the law. In addition, the mayor’s son violated the law twice, first by trying to vote in a place he didn’t live and also by not changing his address on his license in the first place, he said.
“When I was there, they called the county and asked him if they could vote, and they said no. How can they allow this individual who admitted to not being a resident here to vote and not fulfill their obligations?” asked Morgan.
And he says, it is an issue of politics — “ in the sense they made a political decision to allow him to vote,” said Morgan, noting that the Pitluks are supporters of the mayor.
– Cara Latham
