Who is Maria Delgado?

That question has been raised in Huntington political circles and beyond ever since incumbent Town Supervisor Ed Smyth won reelection by a little more than 600 votes.

Smyth defeated Democrat challenger Cooper Macco in a race that was far closer than most political pundits anticipated. But perhaps even more surprising were the 1,195 voters tallied for the Working Families Party candidate in the race - 83-year-old Huntington Station resident Maria Delgado.

Delgado’s vote total nearly doubled the difference between Smyth and Macco’s election results, despite a lack of any type of formal campaign.

News 12 visited Delgado’s listed address in Huntington Station on Wednesday.

No one answered the first time.

A man told News 12 that Delgado did not live there a second time.

But on a third attempt, a man who declined to identify himself opened the front door and shouted, “she ran, she lost and we’re proud of her.”

When asked to make Delgado available to talk about her candidacy, the man again repeated, “she ran, she lost, and we’re proud of her.” The lack of clarity surrounding the WFP’s candidate for Huntington Town Supervisor piqued the interest and concern of many. News 12 filed a Freedom of Information law request last week with the Suffolk Board of Elections. On Tuesday, the Suffolk BOE responded to our request for documents related to Delgado’s candidacy, voting record and voter registration.

The documents obtained by News 12 show that not only was Delgado the Working Families Party candidate for supervisor, but she voted in the general election and the Working Families Party primary this year - which featured her name as one of the two candidates.

Delgado defeated Macco in the Working Families Party primary election.

She switched her party affiliation multiple times over the years since registering as a voter in 1984 - from Democrat to the Women's Equality line, then back to Democrat and then to the WFP in 2021.

It’s unclear how Delgado became a candidate, but according to an amended petition filed with the Suffolk Board of Elections, Delgado is listed as a Working Families Party candidate for Huntington Town supervisor, along with a slate of Working Families Party candidates for Huntington Town board positions.

The Long Island Working Families Party is expected to address the Huntington controversy during a meeting Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, in an interview with News 12, Smyth (R-Halesite) denied that his campaign or the Huntington GOP made any effort to support or enhance Delgado’s candidacy in an attempt to siphon votes away from Macco, as had been suggested on social media by some progressives and Macco supporters.

“No. I have never met Maria Delgado, I've never spoken with her, I didn't recruit her, I don't know anything about her,” Smyth said.

In a statement on social media, Macco called Delgado a “spoiler candidate,” but added, “while it is easy to say this cost me the election, the truth is we will never know what the results would have been without her on the ballot. The true victims this year are the 1,195 Huntington residents who case their votes for a candidate who was not even aware she was running.”

Paul Sabatino, a veteran of county government and municipal law expert with more than 30 years of experience, says the whole situation raises more questions than answers.

“Why this particular person? It makes no sense to me, I'll be honest with you,” Sabatino said.

Sabatino says regardless of the election outcome, the controversy should be a wakeup call for voters to educate themselves about the candidates rather than voting strictly by party line.

“They voted for somebody who had no platform, no campaign, no materials,” Sabatino said. “So what were they doing?”