Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine will uphold the election result even as Trump claims fraud

Suffolk County officials on Friday guaranteed the integrity of the voting process in that county, even if a candidate claims fraud, a day before early voting begins in national and local elections.

Officials unveiled a new $2.8 million early voting center in Yaphank that serves as a training center for poll inspectors, coordinators and other staff charged with ensuring election integrity.

Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine said he has won 19 county elections during his decades-long career in politics and the voting system is sound.

“I can tell you from long experience, I have never questioned the veracity, efficiency and effectiveness of the Board of Elections,” Romaine said. “They’ve always done a great job. … We give them the tools and they’ll do the job.”

Asked at a news conference what his response would be if Donald Trump, a fellow Republican, lost New York state in the presidential election and claimed it was due to fraud, Romaine said he supports the integrity of the system.

“A vote is a vote. A count is a count. And the accuracy of the count, I don’t think will be contested, certainly not in Suffolk County,” Romaine said.

The new center at 700 Yaphank Rd. is being used to train some of the 5,000 poll workers who will oversee the election, officials said. It is one of the largest training centers in the county, they said.

Officials, including Romaine and the Board of Elections’ two commissioners — John Alberts for Democrats and Betty Manzella for Republicans — said there was little or no chance Suffolk’s election system would be tampered with. It is not possible for a hacker to break into the system because it is not connected to the Internet, Manzella said.

When asked how precisely the county trains election workers to detect and counter fraud, Manzella said she could not divulge that for security reasons.

The county is in regular contact with the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the New York State Board of Elections and several law enforcement agencies, including some of their cybersecurity units, she said. “We’re ready for anything,” she said.

The new center can train up to about 100 workers, compared to other locations that train only 20 to 30, Alberts said. Workers must be certified every year, including changes to election laws, he said.

The new center also aims to increase the number of early voters, officials said. About 120,000 Suffolk County residents voted early in the 2020 presidential election, Alberts said. That number is expected to rise to about 200,000 this year, he said.

There are 28 early voting centers in the county, including for the first time the H. Lee Dennison Building in Hauppauge, Alberts said.

Officials expect a significant number of early voters to use the new center in Yaphank, in part because it is centrally located between the Long Island Expressway and Sunrise Highway. The center – and others in Suffolk – also offer weekend, early morning and evening hours to accommodate people’s work schedules.

The county has earmarked $35 million to replace all voting machines in Suffolk next year as part of its efforts to maintain voting integrity, Romaine said.

Early voting starts on October 26th and ends on November 3rd.