Workers in the Democratic Queens district attorney primary recount have not only been indefatigable, but have also made strides that leave them believing the full manual canvas will be done within the span of two weeks.
Officially beginning on July 15, the recount was estimated to require about 15 days for completion. But the Board of Elections finished Tuesday night with 22 percent of ballots taken into account.
As far as objections go, workers for both Tiffany Cabán and Melinda Katz say there has been any conflict in terms of which ballots should be voided.
One source told QNS that a ballot had been voided because the voter had written a paragraph off to the side of the ballot criticizing Cabán as a socialist, which both groups not only agreed was the proper step but served as one of the lighter moments in an otherwise contentious race.
In the 24th Assembly District, represented by Assemblyman David Weprin and containing over 90 election districts, Katz had the clear advantage over Cabán. An accounting attorney “with the county organization” overseeing the tally for Katz, however, told QNS that Gregory Lasak had damaged the borough president’s numbers in the district.
Katz won the 24th AD with 1,968 votes over Cabán’s 1,197, though the BOE has not officiating any numbers at this point.
This is only an advancement of 116 votes for the borough president from the election night results in this AD, which placed Katz at 1,852 and Cabán at 1,175. The margin in this district only changed by a total of 94 votes from 677.
There were plenty of indications that people might not understand how votes would be counted. For example, one person penciled in Republican candidate Daniel Kogan in the closed Democratic primary.
Cabán finished primary night on June 25 with 1,100 votes ahead of Katz, but after a count absentee ballots the following week the BOE stated that Katz had taken the lead by 20.
This was then reduced to 16 by several affidavits that had been redeemed after previously being invalidated by the BOE.
This story has been updated with election night numbers from the 24th Assembly District to better depict how the margin has changed since the recount.
