Voters testify at ballot fraud hearing

TROY - It's now up to a judge to decide if more than 40 ballots cast in Troy's primary last month will be thrown out.

A hearing Thursday stemmed from Republican allegations that Democrats forged absentee ballots.

There was sworn testimony that candidates and current Troy City Council members submitted bogus ballots on behalf of voters enrolled in the Working Families Party.

Person after person went to the witness stand and stated under oath that signatures on Rensselaer County Board of Elections paperwork were forged. Repeatedly, others testified that the reasons they were supposedly requesting the absentee ballots were made up.

But the allegedly falsified ballots were submitted.

"Those ballots showed up at the Rensselaer County Board of Elections signed by these people. Those are fraudulent ballots not cast by those voters," attorney David Gruenberg claimed outside the courtroom.

Jessica Boomhower is one of the voters who testified Thursday. The Troy resident feels democracy was taken from her.

"How frustrated would you be if someone tried to steal your identity or vote that you never got to cast. That's about how upset I am," Boomhower said.

According to Thursday's witnesses the people who approached them with the absentee ballots were Tony Defiglio of the Troy Housing Authority, City Council members Gary Galuski and Clem Campana and City Council candidates Kevin McGrath and Michael Loporto.

Campana has told NewsChannel 13 that he did not do anything wrong.