7th SD Count--The Saga Continues---

Here are the latest updates coming out of the Nassau Board of Elections courtesy of Newsday's Spin Cycle.......

Names to go with faces in 7th SD count

6:24 PM By William Murphy

Photo credit: William Murphy Newsday 2010

There have been some pictures in Newsday and on this web site in the past two weeks that have images of two people who played an important role in the count of paper ballots in the Martins-Johnson.
The man on right with the argyle sweater is Scott Cushing, the GOP's main man in the counting room. (That's Dean Skelos next to Scott.)
And the woman at the center-rear, in blue, in profile, is Hale Yazicioglu, an associate in the Jaspan Schlesinger law firm representing Democrats.

Vote audit: rise of the machines

 

5:21 PM By William Murphy

Suffolk seems to be handling its machine audit with few problems, but Republicans and Democrats are fighting in Nassau and its likely that issue will end up in court at some point down the line with the Martins-Johnson race so close in the 7th SD.


Here’s the statement from Democrat Johnson’s people: “During the ongoing machine audit, a significant number of ballots where the voters clearly marked their choice of candidates in the 7th SD race were not correctly tallied by the voting machines. That number of untallied votes could possibly reach 4,000 and affect the final outcome of this election. Furthermore, during this audit, our counsel and Board of Elections employees uncovered at least one instance where a machine arbitrarily awarded votes cast on one line to another line. It is becoming increasingly clear that a hand vote may be the only way to ensure that every vote is counted."


Here’s Republican attorney John Ryan, who represents the Republican election commissioner, not Republican challenger Jack Martins: “The audit is proceeding and it is accurate. We have no found no discrepancies that did not have a logical explanation.”

Court referee to hear Nassau ballot protests

 

4:17 PM By William Murphy

A court-appointed referee will conduct a hearing Monday at the Nassau Board of Elections to try to reduce the number of contested absentee ballots in the Johnson-Martins state Senate race.
There are 879 contested paper ballots as of now, but attorneys had been hoping to meet informally this weekend to reduce that number.
The court referee, by the way, is A. Jeffrey Grob, who drew attention last year when he ruled that  a surgeon who was not entitled to $1.5 million for the kidney he donated to his wife before their split.

Nassau vote audit: magnified results (audit resumed 9 a.m.)

8:37 AM By William Murphy

Photo credit: William Murphy 2010

All the undisputed ballots in the Martins-Johnson state Senate race have been counted, so focus in Nassau turns to the machine audit, which started a week after Suffolk — although both appear to be going at a snail’s pace.

And the Board of Elections workers in Nassau who thought that counting absentee ballots was boring will now be deployed to the audit, which is both mind-numbingly boring and important. If the new optical scan machines did not count ballots correctly, and the mistakes are so serious that it could the affect the outcome of a race, then judges may once again be called on to decide elections.

As the machine audit continues, we are hoping that Nassau County’s vision plan that covers Board of Election workers has generous benefits down the road. To date, they have gotten free Sight Saver magnifying sheets (in use in above picture) to help them figure out the difference between a smudge and filled-in oval on the ballot.
UPDATE: Board officials unlocked the gates to the machine storage area at 9 a.m. and, after the usual prep work, the audit resumed at 9:20 a.m.]