The vote counting begins at the Town of Ramapo on Wednesday, July 29. It’s been some 10 months since Ramapo voters went to the polls to vote on two ballot initiatives: one called for increasing the Town Board from four to six members, while the other sought to establish a town wide ward system, where town board members would be elected by voters from apportioned sections of the town.

The doors to the Ramapo Town Hall council room open at approximately 9:30 a.m. and shortly thereafter the ballot verification and validation process will begin under the supervision of Town Clerk Christian Sampson’s office. According to a representative in Clerk Sampson’s the only “vote counting” that will take place at Town Hall is the process to validate approximately 550 absentee and 2,500 affidavit ballots.

Town of Ramapo Villages & Hamlets — if the ward vote is approved, the town would divided into six wards with apportioned representation.

Among other verification activities, Sampson’s office will sift through absentee ballot outer envelopes and examine mail time and date stamps to determine if absentee ballots were received in time. The dispute between pro-ward proponents and the town on whether absentee ballots are valid seven days from the September 30 vote day has not been resolved — but ballots that fall within that seven day period will be counted as potentially valid.

All ballots determined to be valid at the Ramapo sorting will then be sent to the Rockland County Board of Elections, which will count and validate the final ward and board vote. Election machines and their votes, paper affidavits and write-in ballots have been locked away at the Board of Elections since a 2014 state court on whether to count the ballots or hold another election.

Wednesday’s action begins the ballot counting process.

It’s not precisely clear whether the ballot referendum to increase the Town Board to six members can pass without the ward referendum’s approval — the initiatives may be linked. But that precise nature of the ward and board outcome is yet to be determined. Currently, Ramapo board members are elected to four-year terms in open, town wide elections, with two council seats up for election every two years. The six ward initiative was brought to the ballot box by Preserve Ramapo members and other advocates after a contentious and pricey game of legal maneuvering over the course of several years — the six ward system is opposed by the Town of Ramapo.

Many ward advocates in Ramapo believe that the ward system would democratize a town voting process that can be overwhelmed by a bloc of voters rallied to a cause or by big campaign contributions from a small group of vested and monied people.

Proponents believe the six ward system would apportion voting power to segments of Ramapo that have similar demographics and neighborhood concerns, such as Western Ramapo communities. Suffern, Monetebello, Sloatsburg, Hillburn, and even Pomona embrace a certain semi-rural ethos. Among other things, western Ramapo villages are more deliberative about development and change, value low growth, access to park lands and green space, and the particular quality of life these things confer.

The more dense eastern Ramapo hamlets and villages have marked growing populations that require housing. East Ramapo currently controls the town’s Planning and Zoning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals and many in the Western Ramapo communities believe town wide initiatives are based on East Ramapo’s concerns.

The September 30, 2014 ballot initiative was marred by unreliable voter eligibility information, where the town opted to allow unregistered voters to participate in the referendum as it was an issue-related town vote, a last-minute action that caused confusion at the polls. Voter eligibility and rules were not clearly articulated town wide and may have resulted in many people being denied the right to vote. Additionally, the town announced that absentee ballots that arrived after September 30 would not be counted, even though ward and board voter applications listed the deadline as the seventh day after the election.

Wednesday’s ward and board ballot verification process is open to the public and may take until Friday to resolve. The Ramapo ward and board vote count will then be in the Rockland County Board of Elections court for final determination. Until, that is, one party or another contests the contest and beings the process of vote counting all over again.