An appeals court ruling has put a candidate for Greece Town Justice back on the ballot after a lower court judge’s ruling threw him off.
Greece Justice Gino Nitti filed suit last month after finding the town’s Republican Party had left his name off nominating petitions circulated by party volunteers. The GOP replaced his name with Town Councilman Brett Granville’s, although Nitti had been given the party’s endorsement for re-election.
A State Supreme Court justice ruled that Nitti had been wrongly left off the ballot, but didn’t reinstate him because he hadn’t circulated his own petitions. Instead, the judge pulled Granville’s name from the ballot. The Monroe County Republican Party and Chairman Bill Reilich appealed, and yesterday the Appellate Division put Brett Granville back on the ballot as a judicial candidate. The court ruled no specific election law or regulation was violated. The decision was unanimous.
The party issued a statement last night saying this situation arose because Judge Nitti failed to attend to basic politics by making sure his nominating petitions were circulated.
Nitti is now running as a Democrat, while Granville will have the Republican and Conservative lines.