Three years later, Brocton Central Schools is willing to address the chaos and disorder from a past straw vote to consider the next step in talks for a potential merger.
It is about time.
Anyone with a clear, unbiased recollection of the vote that day in the district remembers how rigged it was. Confusion reigned, identification was not always necessary and there were even reports of students - not yet age 18 - being allowed in the voting booths.
At a Board of Education meeting last month, member Dave Hazelton said he has been contacted by a resident about future voting procedures because the 2009 edition was such a fiasco. Hazelton, a board member then, admitted when 1,351 district residents cast votes in 2009 that there was no identification mechanism used.
How convenient for those anti-merger residents.
Was the election rigged? We will never know for sure since those running the polls in Brocton were so lax. But if more than 1,800 residents voted in Fredonia - and had to present identification - and 1,351 residents - with non-residents as well - voting in Brocton, there was definitely an issue of impropriety.
Was it illegal. Yes. Did the board know? Apparently so.
Final outcome: a tainted vote and plenty of money still being spent on running a district and more merger studies.
