Democratic socialist on the verge of
unseating 26-year Assembly incumbent
BY ROSE ADAMS
Democratic socialist Marcela
Mitaynes is votes away
from overtaking 26-year incumbent
Félix Ortiz in the
Sunset Park Assembly race,
trailing him by only 131 votes,
according to an unoffi cial tally
on Wednesday morning.
The updated ballot count —
which was calculated by the
Board of Elections and relayed
to Brooklyn Paper by candidate
Katherine Walsh — cuts
Ortiz’s election night lead over
Mitaynes by more than half.
On Tuesday, the Board of
Elections began processing
absentee ballots from Assembly
District 51, which encompasses
Sunset Park, Red Hook,
and a sliver of Bay Ridge. The
district houses two contested
races: one for the Sunset Park
Assembly seat, and another
for the District 25 State Senate
seat, where Democratic socialist
Jabari Brisport narrowly
beat out Bedford-Stuyvesant
Assemblywoman Tremaine
Wright on election night.
COURIER L 6 IFE, JULY 17-23, 2020
The two races are the fi rst
contested elections in Brooklyn
being counted since the
Board of Elections began processing
absentee ballots on
July 8.
In the District 51 Assembly
race, three progressive insurgents
are vying to oust Assemblyman
Ortiz, whose offi ce
was mired in controversy after
a longtime staffer pled guilty
to embezzling $80,000 in campaign
funds last year.
The election is the fi rst time
Ortiz has faced Democratic opposition
since 2014, when Cesar
Zuniga, the present-day board
chair of Community Board 7,
ran against him and won 28
percent of the vote.
Ortiz’s progressive opponents
have slammed him on
the campaign trail for taking
corporate donations and for
allegedly failing to speak up
about issues in the community.
“We have been in a housing
crisis, and it has been worsened
by COVID, yet you continue
to take money for the
real estate and hotel industry,”
said Walsh, an urban planner
and climate activist during a
live-streamed June 19 debate.
“We see in the campaign contributions
of your most recent
fi lings that you didn’t receive
a single dollar from anyone
who’s lived in our district.”
Ortiz still came out ahead
on election night with nearly
38 percent of the vote, raking
in 2,391 votes compared to Mitaynes’
1,927, Walsh’s 1,282,
and Genesis Aquino’s 574.
The Board of Elections,
however, has received more
than 5,000 absentee ballots
from the district — nearly
the same amount of votes that
were cast in person.
On Tuesday, candidates
and campaign staffers gathered
at the Board of Elections’
warehouse in Sunset Park to
oversee the absentee ballot
counting process. One staffer
from each campaign is allowed
to check the ballots for any disqualifying
features — such as
a missing postmark or signature
— and may keep an informal
tally of the votes as they
go. Qualifi ed ballots are then
entered into the Board of Elections’
scanner for a count.
As of 11:30 am on July 15,
one day after offi cials began
counting absentee ballots for
the race, the scanner counted
810 votes for Mitaynes, 548
votes for Walsh, and 477 votes
for Ortiz — cutting Ortiz’s initial
lead over Mitaynes by 333
votes, according to detailed
machine readout of the results
obtained by Walsh.
Mityanes’ campaign, who
keeps their own tally of the
absentee ballots, reported a
higher ballot count at 2:30 pm
on Wednesday, with 1,082 absentee
votes for Mitaynes and
611 for Ortiz. Combined with
the election night votes, that
brings Mitaynes to seven votes
more than Ortiz.
The discrepancy between
the scanners’ and the campaign’s
tallies may come from
the delayed scanner readings,
which don’t count the votes
as quickly as staffers process
them, according to a Board of
Elections spokeswoman.
“It’s possible to get a quicker
count at the table because the
staff scans in batches, not as
each ED is complete,” said Valerie
Velazquez.
Sunset Park Assembly candidate
Marcela Mitaynes is just 131 votes
away from surpassing incumbent
Félix Ortiz. Photo by Caroline Ourso
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