OCEAN CITY – The two candidates for the City Council’s Third Ward seat in the May 14 municipal election had a testy exchange after the losing candidate withdrew her legal challenge to the balloting results.
Amy Vaules lost the race to Jody Levchuk by two votes but contested the result, based on two mail-in ballots that were not counted and on her questions about the true permanent address of Levchuk’s brother and whether his vote should stand.
On July 22, the day before the parties were to appear before Judge Michael Blee in Superior Court, Vaules issued a press release in which she conceded the election and ended her legal challenge. In her release, she said she withdrew because she learned that the two mail-in ballots that might have tied the vote count were received “after the legally permissible timeframe under New Jersey law.”
On July 25, Levchuk responded to her concession. Through an attorney, he said that Vaules “isn’t telling the public the real reason she withdrew her challenge to the Ocean City Third Ward City Council election result.”
He said that the issue involved “questions about the failed candidate’s own residence.” Levchuk claims that his own investigation found that Vaules drives a car with Florida plates, has a home in Florida and, along with her husband, has elected the “Homestead Exemption” on the Florida home, taking an exemption that he says is available only to Florida residents.
In the city’s reorganization meeting July 1, Levchuk became emotional and displayed anger that anyone would challenge his brother Randy Levchuk’s vote. “Shame on them,” he said more than once. He asserted that his brother is a property owner in Ocean City with a long history of voting in the city.
He stated that he is “relieved that the challenge has been dropped.” His press release goes on to state, “I am frustrated that we were denied our day in court to defend my name and my family’s reputation and clear up these false accusations.”
Almost immediately following Levchuk’s release, Vaules countered what she termed Levchuk’s “false allegations released today.”
She asserts that her legal residence is within Ocean City’s Third Ward. In a release, she displays a photo of her New Jersey driver’s license with its Ocean City address.
She said her family has lived in the Third Ward since 1989, and that she and her husband have owned homes in the Third Ward since 2018. She said that she has consistently voted from her residence in the Third Ward and has never voted in any other state.
Vaules acknowledged that she and her husband own a home in Florida, adding that it is “not my home of record, and I am not registered to vote there.” She said the fact that her Florida property received a Homestead Exemption “years ago, prior to living in Ocean City, has nothing to do with my residency.”
She went on to say that her “only interest was in establishing Randy’s eligibility to vote from his brother’s home” in the Third Ward, saying that it is a “residence he clearly did not live at.” She says the matter remains unresolved.
Vaules said that when it became clear that the two uncounted ballots could not affect the election result, “I decided to discontinue the challenge to put the matter to rest for the voters.”
Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
