By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- The St. Lawrence County Board of Elections ruled against a challenge to incumbent Mayor James Hidy's nomination by the Massena Republicans. He will appear on the GOP line in the November election.

The election board has two commissioners, one Republican and one Democratic, and they both have to agree to uphold a challenge.

"It takes two 'yes' votes to uphold a challenge and we had one 'yes' vote and one 'no' vote," Democratic Election Commissioner Jennie Bacon said.

Charles Romigh, a member of the Massena Republican party, challenged Hidy's nomination at a Sept. 8 caucus. He said that the person who nominated Hidy, Gary Borgosz, did not have the legal right to participate in the caucus because he signed Hidy's petition to run as an independent.

Massena Democratic party chairperson Cortney Deshaies released a statement the weekend after the caucus where she said state election law forbids giving Hidy the nod.

"After review of the petition filed and watching the Republican Party caucus, there were a number of voters that signed Mayor Hidy’s independent petition and voted in the Republican caucus. This violates section 15-108 9 of NYS Village Election Law, thereby making his nomination at the Republican caucus illegal," Deshaies said.

Bacon and Republican Election Commissioner Tom Nichols said they disagreed on their interpretation.

"According to election law … the party member who made the nomination (Borgosz) wasn't even eligible to participate in the caucus, so for me, that's why," Bacon said of her decision to vote in favor of Romigh's challenge.

But Nichols said he believes the law says it's not who makes the nomination that matters, it's how many votes they get.

"In my opinion, the law says the nomination is not made by someone saying 'I nominate somebody.' It's made by the highest number of votes," Nichols said. "It's no different than any other election … just because one person votes that wasn't supposed to be there, you don't throw the whole election out."

The party voted in favor of Hidy 20-11, so he would still have the majority with the one vote tossed out.