A phone, clothes and a towel belonging to a political candidate in the New York City suburbs were found on the sand of a Long Island beach in April.
Petros Krommidas is believed to have gone for a night swim to train for a triathlon.
It has been five months, and there is still no sign of the 29-year-old former Ivy League rower.
Despite being a missing person, a state judge recently ordered that Mr Krommidas's name remain on the ballot for local office in Nassau County.
When voting opened in the New York general elections on Tuesday, Long Beach and other South Shore communities were faced with a curious choice: re-elect the Republican incumbent or the Democrat who seemingly vanished at sea.
Candidate's final moments
The last post on the Petros Krommidas for Nassau County Legislator Facebook page was on April 23.
Mr Krommidas had attended a monthly meeting for young Democrats and thanked them for being "such a thoughtful, engaged group committed to making a difference in our community".
At about 10:30pm that night, he would be seen for the last time, according to his family.
He had parked his car at Long Beach, where he frequently went to exercise after work.
"He has always been in great shape and was training for a triathlon," his mother, Maria, wrote in a Facebook post at the time.
"He was not a stranger to cold water training."
His family reported him missing the following day, saying it was "completely out of character for him not to respond".
In the days after his disappearance, family and friends joined first responders in scouring Long Beach's broad, a more than 4.8-kilometre-long swath of sand.
The beach is located just east of the New York City borough of Queens.
After months of gruelling search operations by police and divers, Mr Krommidas has not been found and is presumed dead.
Missing person flyers with images of his youthful, smiling face are tattered and faded but still visible on telephone poles around Long Beach.
Meanwhile, campaign signs for his opponent, Patrick Mullaney, are displayed on fences along the main thoroughfares and on tidy residential lawns.
Bids for new candidate denied
Local Democrats attempted to field a replacement to run for the seat in the Nassau County Legislature.
But two Republican voters took them to court and won.
"A 'missing person' status does not qualify as a vacancy," Judge Gary Knobel said in a September ruling.
He noted that someone needed to be missing for at least three years to be legally declared dead.
And because Mr Krommidas had already been selected as the party's nominee, he was required by law to be the candidate.
Initially, some Democrats accused their rivals of trying to keep him there for political advantage.
Nassau County Young Democrats wrote in a Facebook post that forcing their "missing friend to stay on the ballot is frankly ghoulish".
But Mr Krommidas's family and supporters have since been encouraging voters to cast their ballot for the young candidate to honour his memory.
"If you're in District 4, vote for my amazing brother, Petros Krommidas, who was and would have continued to be an incredible leader for our community," his sister, Eleni-Lemonia Krommidas, wrote on Facebook this week.
"This isn't just about honoring the amazing person he was, but it's also about ensuring a fair election."
James Hodge, a Long Beach resident who worked with Mr Krommidas at the Nassau County Board of Elections, had been tapped by Democrats to run in his place.
He hoped that a win for Mr Krommidas would trigger a special election in which the Democrats could put forward another candidate.
"We need to stand by and honour his name and memory," Mr Hodge told The Associated Press.
"Let's give him that victory. It's the right thing to do."
Mr Krommidas's situation is not entirely unfamiliar.
Dennis Hof, owner of the Nevada brothel featured on HBO's Cathouse documentary series, died weeks before the 2018 election, but still captured a seat in the state legislature.
In 2020, North Dakota legislative candidate David Andahl died from COVID-19 the month before the election and still won.
And in 2022, Pennsylvania state representative Anthony DeLuca won re-election after dying from lymphoma the month prior.
ABC/AP
