by Robert Lynch; November 4, 2025; new reporting, November 5, 2025 @ 9:12 PM
Their victory may prove hard to stop. Enfield incumbent Democratic Councilpersons Jude Lemke and Cassandra Hinkle have taken the lead in a close election for two Town Councilperson seats. Yet still uncounted absentee ballots could influence the final election outcome.
Updated Board of Elections tallies that combined same-day in-person voting with previously-cast early voting and already-counted absentee ballots late Tuesday put incumbent Jude Lemke in the lead in the four-way race for two Town Board seats. Lemke held that lead with 426 votes. Fellow Democratic incumbent Cassandra Hinkle was polling second as of late Tuesday with 409 votes.
If those leads hold, Lemke and Hinkle, each completing their first, full four-year terms on the Enfield Town Board, would each secure another term in office.
“We did it,” Councilperson Hinkle posted on her Facebook page early Wednesday morning. “Thank you sooo much to everyone who helped Jude and I on this win. It was a very close race, and I am grateful to serve Enfield for another 3 years,” Hinkle stated.
Polling third at this moment was challenger independent Rosie Carpenter, who claimed 394 votes, just 15 votes behind Hinkle. Challenger Robert Tuskey placed fourth at 343 votes.
Absentee ballots can still add to the total, as they are received by the Tompkins County Board of Elections in future days, so long as they were postmarked by Tuesday, November 4, Election Day.
“Both Rosie and Bob conducted strong campaigns that they should be proud of. I am honored to have been re-elected to represent the residents of Enfield,” Councilperson Lemke wrote late Wednesday in a statement. “I hope this campaign has raised awareness and that more residents will participate in Town Board meetings in the future.”
To stage an upset over Hinkle, challenger Carpenter will have an uphill fight.
Only 28 circulated absentee ballots were unaccounted-for in Tuesday’s tally, according to a Tompkins County Board of Elections spokesperson contacted Wednesday morning. Those ballots were mailed, but had not yet been received to be included in the Election Night returns. Add to those 28, another eight “Affidavit Ballots,” votes attempted to be cast at the polls Election Day, but not included because of various questions by elections inspectors..
Elections’ officials have no way to project how many of the still-unreceived absentee ballots, properly postmarked, will indeed be received by the Wednesday, November 12 deadline for their receipt. To surpass Hinkle, Carpenter would need to receive an overwhelming majority of the uncounted absentee and affidavit ballots, effectively getting 16 more of those votes than would Hinkle.
The contacted Board of Elections spokesperson indicated that while a partial tally of received Absentee Ballots may be possible next Monday, November 10, an update may not be issued until after the November 12th, 5 PM deadline.
In the Enfield election, incumbents Lemke and Hinkle campaigned as a team carrying the Democratic Party endorsement and supported by the party organization. Carpenter and Tuskey, likewise aligned themselves as a team and proceeded toward the election generally self-funded.
All other Town of Enfield offices, including that of Town Supervisor, were uncontested this election cycle. Town Supervisor Stephanie Redmond won without serious opposition, as did Town Clerk Mary Cornell and Highway Superintendent Barry “Buddy” Rollins.
“I thank everybody that came out and voted and gave their support,” Rosie Carpenter, contacted Wednesday morning, said following her narrow apparent defeat. Carpenter declined to issue a formal statement pending the final count of absentee and affidavit ballots November 12 and declined to concede the race until then. “I am very happy with what the people did,” Carpenter said, commending her supporters. People should “pay attention to what’s happening in their town.” Carpenter advised.
Robert Tuskey, the apparent fourth place finisher, Wednesday touched on the positive benefits derived from his campaign.
“I enjoyed meeting with people I hadn’t seen in a very long time, for decades and hearing their stories,” Tuskey remarked the morning after the election. “It was a breath of fresh air to see the heart of the community and hear issues the Town Board is considering,” Tuskey added.
“There are many benefits that came out of this,” Robert Tuskey said of his now-concluded campaign.
Other Races:
Among other noteworthy races around Tompkins County, Democratic incumbent Town Supervisor Katelin Olson defeated by a more than two-to-one margin her independent opponent Supervisor candidate Katherine Lou Walker. Unofficial tallies gave Olson 994 votes, Walker 437.
In Lansing, in the most hotly-contested race for Tompkins County Legislature, incumbent Republican Mike Sigler beat Democratic challenger James Perkins. Sigler won with 1215 votes (54.5%) to Perkins’ 969 (43.5%), with an additional two percent of write-ins.
Meanwhile, the race for Lansing Town Board ended the night as a free-for-all, its outcome complicated by the last-minute entry of two write-in candidates to challenge the Democratic incumbents.
The only thing certain in Lansing is that incumbent Judy Drake, now running as a Democrat, will keep her Town Board seat. Drake prevailed with 1763 votes. But the other incumbent, Democrat Joseph Wetmore, has found himself four votes behind one of two write-in positions. Wetmore got 1585 votes. One write-in slot got 1589 votes, the second 1424 votes.
In the final weeks of the 2025 campaign, two write-in aspirants, John Duthie and Joe Lovejoy, entered the race for Lansing Town Board, their entry prompted by Lansing’s growing controversy over the proposed TerraWulf power plant’s conversion into a data center.
As of Tuesday night, it remained unclear as to how many write-in votes were cast for Duthie and how many for Lovejoy. Depending upon how the write-in votes are sorted out between the candidates, Wetmore could lose his seat on the Board to one of the write-ins or he may not. There’ll likely be a recount in any case.
In Newfield, the two incumbents on the Town Board will remain. In a three-way contest for two Councilperson seats, incumbent Democrat Joanne James polled strongest with 519 votes. Republican incumbent Christine Seamon snagged the second seat with 398 votes. Another Republican candidate, Michael Corbett, trailed with 350 votes.
In eastern Dryden, the Tompkins County legislative seat to be vacated by the retiring Mike Lane will remain Democratic. Democrat Dan Wakeman clobbered Republican rival Thomas Corey for the right to succeed Lane, 1046 votes to 350.
Closer to Enfield, across the town line in the Town of Ithaca, Democrat Christy Bianconi beat independent candidate Michelle Wright for the opportunity to succeed the retiring County Legislator Amanda Champion. Bianconi secured 400 votes, Wright 292 votes. Of note, according to media reports, Champion had endorsed Wright to be her preferred successor in recent weeks. It won’t happen.
In Enfield, both seats on the County Legislature were decided without contest. Incumbent Republican Randy Brown will continue to represent southern Enfield. Democratic newcomer Rachel Ostlund, unopposed, will succeed the retiring Democrat Anne Koreman in northern Enfield’s redrawn District 16.
Returning to Lansing, two-term County legislator Deborah Dawson, who this fall abandoned her planned retirement and launched a write-in campaign for reelection, appears to have won that new term, although by a closer margin that some might have expected.
Dawson’s legislative District 7 lies to the south of Sigler’s District 8. Initially in that race, newcomer John Dennis had secured the Democrat’s District 7 nomination. But when fellow Democrat Dawson re-entered the contest, Dennis attempted to drop out. Yet he did so too late to have his name taken off the ballot. In Tuesday’s voting, an unspecified “write-in” candidate, presumably Dawson, secured 56 percent of the vote. Dennis got nearly 44 percent support.
Jude Lemke’s first-place finish in Enfield’s Tuesday elections may have been helped by the Democrat’s springtime endorsement from the Enfield Republican Committee.
Although the initial Board of Elections consolidated compilation of same-day, early, and absentee voting results fails to distinguish votes for Lemke by party, machine results from the Enfield polling location Tuesday indicated that 60 of the 363 votes Lemke secured from same-day voting came from her placement on the Republican line.
Had Lemke not received that Republican support and relied on Democrat votes alone, Lemke might have fallen to fourth place, behind Tuskey’s 323 same-day, in-person votes. In the final analysis, the ballot line distinction doesn’t matter.
Anecdotal evidence gleaned from door-to-door solicitations during the campaign’s final days suggests that despite the many yard signs that competing candidates had planted around Enfield, despite a four-way candidate forum October 14 at the Enfield Grange, and despite at least one media profile, some who had voted on or before Election Day knew little about the contested Town Councilperson races and knew little about who was running.
Rosie Carpenter and Robert Tuskey relied heavily upon door-to-door constituent interactions to advance their ideas and images, either through contacts by themselves or by their supporters. Lemke and Hinkle appeared to have relied more on community events and party-sponsored publicity. The extent of Lemke’s and Hinkle’s own door-knocking efforts were not immediately ascertained.
Doorstep interactions—including those by this Councilperson/writer, a Carpenter and Tuskey supporter— revealed among those who favored the challengers a pervasive discontent with the Enfield Town Board’s current direction. At times, the opposition grew personal. To an extent, this year’s election results reflected that discontent.
Lemke and Hinkle, as well as Carpenter and Tuskey, allied themselves as teams that obliterated party distinctions. Had Lemke’s and Hinkle’s votes been combined, they’d have totaled 835, or 53.1 percent of the consolidated number of votes cast. The combined votes for Carpenter and Tuskey would have totaled 737, or 46.9 percent. That’s about a six percent spread. Yet it’s still reflective of the divided political sentiments within Enfield.
And consider another telling statistic, one likely reflective of community discontent. In winning the race for Town Supervisor, incumbent Democrat Stephanie Redmond, a close ally of both Lemke and Hinkle, ran without opposition. (Redmond was first elevated to Town Supervisor by appointment in 2021. And elected Tuesday, she will in January commence her third consecutive full term in office.)
Redmond secured 506 votes in Tuesday’s election. But another 19 Enfield voters chose to write-in somebody else’s name instead. More importantly, as many as 288 Enfield voters chose not to vote for Town Supervisor at all.
Adding it all up, it means that of the 813 votes potentially available to cast for Supervisor in the election, only 62.2 percent of voters supported Stephanie Redmond, leaving 37.8 percent of the electorate choosing not to support her continuation in office.
Redmond’s lack of affirmation should be compared with that for two other uncontested offices in Enfield. A full 85.5 percent of total voters chose to reelect (uncontested) Town Clerk Mary Cornell. More than 80 percent affirmed the reelection of Barry Rollins to another term as Highway Superintendent, Rollins likewise unopposed.
Clearly, among those who voted, Supervisor Redmond faces a popularity deficit, more so than does Clerk Cornell or Highway Superintendent Rollins.
Volunteers canvassing door-to-door pre-election encountered at times deep-seated opposition to Redmond’s—and also to the Enfield Town Board majority’s—leadership and management style. Prospective voters who favored Carpenter and Tuskey as alternative Town Board members cited the need for new leadership and pointed toward a desire for greater “transparency” in Enfield Town governance. Transparency had become a recurring theme of the Carpenter and Tuskey campaigns.
Contacted individually Wednesday, Rosie Carpenter and Robert Tuskey reaffirmed their intent to remain engaged in Enfield politics and participate in governmental affairs post-election. “I’m not going away,” Rosie Carpenter was heard to say.
Note: This latest version has been updated to include the comments of Councilpersons Cassandra Hinkle and Jude Lemke on their apparent reelection victories.
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