Election 2023

With Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman facing a term limit this year, two current trustees seeking a seat on the town board, and newcomers stepping up to challenge incumbents in multiple roles, Election Day in Southampton is shaping up to be a competitive one.

One incumbent and three newcomers are seeking two spots on the East Hampton Town Board. Councilman David Lys, running on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines, is joined on those ballot lines by Tom Flight, who is a first-time candidate. Opposing them are two other first-time candidates: Scott Smith and Michael Wootton on the Republican and Conservative Party lines.

For those who find a sample ballot useful before they head to the polls, here is what the front and back of the ballot looks like in East Hampton Town. 

Registered voters in East Hampton and Southampton Towns have through Sunday to cast their ballots under New York State's early-voting provisions.

Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, the Democratic and Working Families Party candidate, and a sitting town councilwoman, is facing Gretta Leon, the Republican and Conservative Party candidate and a newcomer to town politics, in the 2023 race for the East Hampton Town supervisor's seat.

Though county government can seem at a distance from the needs of the South Fork, we depend on it for a range of services, from environmental protection to keeping harbor inlets navigable.

Seven of the nine incumbent East Hampton Town Trustees, six of them Democrats and one a Republican with Democratic cross-endorsement, are seeking re-election on Nov. 7. Altogether, there are 12 people running for the nine seats, including three Republican challengers, one Democrat, and one other cross-endorsed candidate.

The four candidates vying for two seats on the East Hampton Town Board agreed on some issues and differed on others in an Oct. 18 debate hosted by the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and North Fork.

In the race for Suffolk County executive, voters will choose between an experienced politician, Ed Romaine, a Republican and the current Brookhaven Town supervisor, and a newcomer to politics, Dave Calone, an entrepreneur and former prosecutor who is a Democrat. Steve Bellone, a Democrat who has served as county executive since 2012, is term-limited and could not run for re-election.

Wastewater management, renewable energy, housing, traffic, and migrants were among the topics addressed in Monday’s debate between candidates for the Suffolk County Legislature’s Second District, hosted by the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork. Manny Vilar of Springs, the chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee and a retired state parks police officer, is the Republican candidate. His Democratic opponent is Ann Welker, a Southampton Town trustee.

The East Hampton Town Justice race to replace Lisa R. Rana, who, after 20 years on the bench, is retiring, pits David Filer, running as a Democrat, against Brian Lester on the Republican ticket. Both men are fathers, both boast of family ties tracing back to East Hampton’s earliest settlers, and both have had long careers in the law.

Ahead of the Nov. 7 general election, key deadlines for voter registration and absentee balloting are coming up in the next two weeks.