The Conservative Party primaries in Albany County on Sept. 10 had mixed results.

There are 475 enrolled Conservatives in Guilderland and 201 enrolled Conservatives in New Scotland.

In Guilderland, the party-endorsed candidate for supervisor, Democrat Peter Barber, faced Brian Forte, the Republican Party’s candidate who launched a write-in campaign.

Write-in votes were counted at 88 to Barber’s 72, according to the Albany County Board of Elections’ unofficial results.

In the town board race, Democrat Rosemary Centi, Republican Lee Carman, and Conservative Michele Coons, all running on the Republican ticket, all backed by the Conservative Party, ran for two spots on the ballot.

Carman garnered the most votes, with 120, followed by Coons, with 104. Centi received 70 votes, and there were 17 write-in votes.

In Guilderland’s 29th District for the Albany County Legislature, Democrat David Cardona, a former Voorheesville trustee who had the Conservative Party backing, got 16 votes in the primary. Using an opportunity to ballot, Republican Mark Grimm, a former Guilderland Town Board member, got 39 votes, according to unofficial results from the Albany County Board of Elections. The post is currently held by Lee Carman, a Republican who is seeking a Guilderland Town Board seat.

In New Scotland, Democratic incumbent board members William C. Hennessy Jr. and Patricia Snyder were the candidates endorsed by the Conservative Party, and Republican Party Chairman Timothy Stanton said his party’s candidates, Craig A. Shufelt and Christopher P. Frueh, had not been asked to come in for interviews.

Stanton said before the primary that Shufelt and Frueh would be seeking write-in votes.

According to the county’s Board of Elections, write-in votes made up 38.82 percent of the results, whereas Hennessy Jr. received 29 percent of the votes, and Snyder received 23 percent.

The write-in votes will not be opened and counted until Sept. 21.

Democrat Adam Greenberg, who was appointed to fill a vacancy on the town board, received 26 votes and there were 28 write-in votes. 

Hilltowns

Incumbents kept their lines in the two highest profile races but had strong challenges from local entrepreneurs in the rural parts of the county.

Republican Deborah Busch, running for her second term as a county legislator in District 39, got 27 Conservative votes, or 69.23 percent, to 12 for Christopher Smith, a restaurant owner on Warners Lake in Berne.

The minority whip in the legislature, Busch, a nurse, won her first election in 2011 with a victory over a 16-year incumbent Democrat after the district lines had been redrawn.

Smith is enrolled as a Conservative and has Democratic endorsement. The owner of Maple on the Lake, a large and popular lakeside restaurant, Smith said he is getting into politics after tapping into the local discourse through his business.

The 39th legislative district covers a wide area across the rural Hilltowns, including parts of Knox and Berne, and the towns of Westerlo and Rensselaerville.

Vasilios Lefkaditis has been part of the Hilltown discourse for several years, a school board member and vocal town resident now mounting a challenge to longtime Knox Supervisor Michael Hammond, saying not enough is done to encourage economic development in the Hilltown.

Both Democrats faced off last Tuesday, with 18 votes for Hammond, or 54.55 percent, and 15 write-in votes.

Hammond’s deputy supervisor, Nicolas Viscio, ran for the Independence Party line as he bids for a seat in the county legislature, garnering 34 votes last Thursday to 34 write-in votes. Republican Travis Stevens, who will face Viscio in November, served briefly on the Knox Town Board before he was elected as a county legislator.

The district they will vie for in November covers most of Knox, a corner of Berne, and the western half of Guilderland, including the village of Altamont.

Like most of the county, enrollment in the Hilltowns skews Democratic. Enrollment among 1,850 registered voters in Knox breaks down with 38 percent Democrats, 22 percent Republicans, 6 percent Independence Party members, 3 percent Conservatives, and 27 percent not affiliated with a political party.

Berne has 46 percent Democrats, 25 percent not affiliated, 16 percent Republicans, and the rest in smaller parties. Conservatives make up 3 percent of the town’s 2,000 voters. Seventeen Conservatives endorsed Sean S. Lyons in the primary for the Berne town council race, with Rick Otto three votes shy, plus nine write-in votes.

Rensselaerville has roughly 46 percent Democrats, 21 percent Republicans, 20 percent not affiliated, and the rest made up of smaller parties. It has around 100 Independence Party members. In a race for that line, incumbent councilwoman Margaret Sedlmeir got just 18 votes to 22 for Kevin McGrath and 12 written in.

For Rensselaerville’s town justice, Dwight Cooke got 20 votes and Brian O’Keefe got just 13 for the Independence Party line.

Independence Party voters wrote in 12 times and gave 21 votes to former town assessor, Jeffry Pine.