A Nassau judge said Tuesday he was considering a hand count of a few elections districts within the 7th Senate district before he decides whether a hand count of all 85,000 ballots in the tight Johnson-Martins race in the district is needed.
Justice Ira Warshawsky was visibly annoyed — “I’m not angry; I’m annoyed.” — when he found out about 288 paper ballots in the race that he had not known about until recently, prompting him to summon election lawyers to his courtroom at 2 p.m. on short notice.
Attorney Steven Schlesinger, representing incumbent Democrat Craig Johnson, who trails by more than 400 votes, showed up in a zippered sweatshirt. No suit jackot or tie. Republican challenger Jack Martins slipped into the courtroom after the proceeding began and sat near the door.
Republican and Democratic lawyers bickered about the meaning of the 288 ballots, with Democrats saying some of them should be counted, but Republicans arguing that many of them were cast by people who were not registered voters. Both sides said only 113 of the 288 were really in dispute. All 288 were paper ballots filled out by voters on Election Day after the voters were told they were not registered in the district.
The judge ordered another court session for 8:30 a.m. Wednesday to get an update on the 288, or 113.
In any case, the judge said, he would not consider expanding the ballot review until the Board of Elections reports to him Thursday on the state-mandated audit of 3 percent of its 1,071 voting machines to see if they worked properly.
That audit includes six or seven machines within the 7th SD, and the judge indicated he would like attorney to think about the possibility of a hand count in about 10 of the 270 elections districts within the Senate district to get a better sense of how the vote went.
Several upstate news outlets, including the Buffalo News, are reporting that Democratic incumbent state Sen. Antoine Thompson has conceded to Republican challenger Mark Grisanti in the 60th SD in Erie and Niagara Counties.
Democratic incumbent Suzi Oppenheimer holds a lead of several hundred votes over Republican challenger Bob Cohen in the 37th SD in Westchester.
That leaves Nassau County, where Democratic incumbent Craig Johnson trails Republican challenger Jack Martins by 431 in the 7th SD, but with a stiff legal fight expected.
Justice Ira Warshawsky of state Supreme Court in Mineola, who is overseeing the Nassau election results, has asked all parties to come to his chambers at 2 p.m. Tuesday. We hope to have more on that later.
If the counting and legal challenges ended right now, Republicans would gain control of the Senate 32-30.
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