Quick Summary
Trailing candidates plan this week to ask judges to order full hand recounts of the tens of thousands of ballots cast in their races.
Photo credit: Getty Images | Rep. Tim Bishop speaks at the Allstate 'X the TXT' press conference in Washington, DC. (April 27, 2010)
Almost two weeks after Election Day, three Long Island races remain too close to declare a victor, with the trailing candidates planning this week to ask judges to order full hand recounts of the tens of thousands of ballots cast in their races. In Suffolk, attorneys for Democrats Rep. Tim Bishop of Southampton and Assemb. Marc Alessi of Shoreham, who trail Republican challengers Randy Altschuler and Suffolk Legis. Dan Losquadro by narrow margins, plan to go to court early this week.
In Nassau, a judge Friday refused to order a hand count of all 85,000 ballots cast in the contested state Senate race between incumbent Democrat Craig Johnson of Port Washington and his Republican challenger, Mineola Mayor Jack Martins. By the end of Friday, Martins led Johnson 41,356 to 41,110, a margin of 246. Martins had begun the day up 427.
Nassau Monday will resume counting absentee and military ballots in the Senate race. So far, Nassau officials have gotten through about a quarter of the 3,500 mailed-in ballots.
In Suffolk, the Board of Elections will continue an audit of 43 voting machines that must be examined under a state mandate to determine if errors were made by the new optical scanning machines. By the end of Friday, officials had almost completed auditing 10 machines and had found no problems, Suffolk officials said.
Here's where the legal challenges in each races stands now:
1st Congressional District: While Altschuler is scheduled to be in Washington this week for new-member orientation, Bishop is far from conceding to the St. James Republican.
Bishop's attorney, Thomas Garry, is planning to file legal paperwork asking a Suffolk judge to order a hand recount of the 185,000 ballots cast, and elections officials are preparing to begin the count of absentee ballots, perhaps as soon as Tuesday, elections officials said.
Altschuler spokesman Rob Ryan said Bishop's team should wait for the Board of Elections to complete its 3 percent audit of voting machines and count absentee ballots before calling for a hand recount.
"The fact of the matter is the audit of the voting machines has shown no problems and to date no one has questioned the integrity of the machines," Ryan said.
While his attorneys take his fight to the courts, Bishop is headed to Washington for the congressional lame-duck session, spokeswoman Lisa Wieber said.
"In addition to finishing this year's congressional session, Congressman Bishop will be preparing to continue fighting in Congress next year for job creation, tax relief, and opportunity for Long Island families," she said.
7th Senate District: State Supreme Court Justice Ira Warshawsky, who is overseeing the results in the Johnson-Martins race, on Friday expressed exasperation with the pace of the ballot count.
But the judge said, "I'm not going to order any hand count at this point."
Republican lawyer John Ryan had accused Democrats of dragging their feet on getting started each morning. Democratic lawyer Thomas Garry, who was threatened with contempt for showing up to court late, told the judge that at worst there was perception of foot-dragging, "and we will remedy that perception."
The judge said he expected both parties to act expeditiously, and then said slowly, accentuating each word: "They're just supposed to do their jobs, which is to count ballots, and there are uncounted ballots."
1st Assembly District: Attorneys for Alessi and Losquadro are due in State Supreme Court at 9:30 a.m. Monday to discuss Alessi's request for a hand recount of the 42,028 ballots cast in the race.
Losquadro, who held a 40-vote lead after unofficial election night returns, saw his advantage jump to 890 votes after Board of Elections officials double-checked tallies from the electronic voting machines.
Losquadro's attorney, his brother Steven Losquadro, said he will continue to fight a hand recount until there is evidence the voting machines miscounted any ballots.
"Any request now for a hand count is extraordinarily premature," he said. "Unless there's some sort of drastic change in that regard, there won't be a hand recount because there wouldn't be any basis under the law for there to be one."
With Mitchell Freedman
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