“We all need to correct this behavior,” said Tom Baio to the Observer-Tribune. However, it was unclear if he meant voting by mail, voting while not a resident (as most students and young adults do), or that his daughter voted for the Democrat instead of him. I’m sure that the courts love this type of foolishness though.
Oh, and Tom Baio mailed the ballot to his daughter.
Source: New Jersey Hills
Morris County Republicans Thursday said they would soon file a lawsuit contesting the results of the Nov. 8 election in which Republican Township Committeeman Tom Baio lost his bid for another three-year term to Democratic challenger Lauren Spirig by three votes.
In a statement issued Thursday by Morris County Republican Committee Chair Laura Ali, Republicans allege several young Democrats who cast vote-by-mail, or VBM, ballots failed to meet state residency requirements, among them the daughter of Morris County Democratic Chair Amalia Duarte, who lives in Knoxville Tenn. Duarte is also a Township Committeewoman and is Ali’s Democratic counterpart.
What that statement fails to mention, however, is that a voter who also allegedly violated those requirements was Ariana Baio, Baio’s daughter who is a professional journalist living in New York City and who said her father on Thursday, voted Democratic in the Nov. 8 election.
Baio, who told this newspaper of his daughter’s involvement, expressed regret that he and his wife had, in fact, mailed the ballot to their daughter, but resolved to move forward with the suit.
“Like many parents driven by a sense of duty, we were wrong to advance the VBM to my daughter, Ariana,” he said. “My daughter did answer the call of duty and did vote by the mail-in ballot.
“We all need to correct this behavior,” he said. “As parents, and as citizens of towns as great as Mendham, I call on all Mendham residents next year to heed this example. As shameful as it is, we need to correct this behavior. I know I will.”
