FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM JULY 11, 2019 • THE QUEENS COURIER 17
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Queens DA primary recount will decide razor-thin race
BY MARK HALLUM
mhallum@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
The automatic recount in the
Democratic primary for Queens district
attorney is fi nally underway, as Board of
Elections workers began the tedious process
Unsettled Queens DA race takes ugly turn
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
rpozarycki@qns.com
@robbpoz
As a mandatory recount loomed in
the too-close-to-call Democratic primary
for Queens district attorney, tensions
between the campaigns of Queens
Borough President Melinda Katz and
public defender Tiff any Cabán reached
the boiling point on the July 4 holiday
weekend.
In less than two weeks, the two
top vote-getters in the primary have
each claimed victory — Cabán after
she built a 1,100-vote lead following
the June 25 primary, and Katz
after overcoming that deficit and taking
a 20-vote lead following the July 3
paper ballot count. (Katz’s lead shrunk
on July 5 to just 16 after the Board of
Elections unsealed six affidavit ballots
deemed valid. Five of them were for
Cabán, the other for Katz).
Now the two campaigns are trading
vicious barbs with one another over the
process itself. In statements sent to QNS
on July 4 and 5, Cabán’s camp claimed
that the recount process was tainted by
insider “machine” politics, while Katz’s
team countered that her main opponent
deliberately sought to exclude votes from
communities of color.
A Cabán spokesperson charged insinuated
that the campaign “is up against a
party machine that has ruled local politics
and suppressed democracy for decades.”
Bill Lipton, director of the Working
Families Party, which supports Cabán,
further insinuated that the machine
“handpicked” Board of Elections workers
who turned away fi rst-time voters, many
of whom likely would have chosen the
public defender.
He added that in cases where new voters
did cast their ballots, they may have
been invalidated.
“Th ousands of affi davit ballots, many
of them cast by new voters inspired
by Tiff any’s message of a criminal justice
system that works for all of us, were
invalidated by poll workers handpicked
by Queens party leaders,” Lipton said.
“At the same time, when we go to court,
we’ll face judges handpicked by the same
machine. Th e system is rife with confl icts
of interest.”
Th e Caban campaign is also fundraising
off allegations of impropriety. In an email
received by QNS, the campaign sought
$10 donations from the public in order
to have “the resources we need to make
sure that this recount is fair and transparent.”
Th e email claimed that the Board
of Elections “is trying to throw out over
2,000 votes.”
But Matthew Rey, a partner at Red
Horse Strategies and spokesperson for
the Katz campaign, dismissed the allegations
as “outrageous” and “wrongheaded
claims.” He then charged that earlier in
the week, “the Cabán legal team tried to
stop votes from being counted in southeast
Queens and lost, and now her supporters
are making false claims about
Melinda and this process to try to discredit
results which aren’t in her favor.”
“Our goal at the beginning of this week
was to count every valid vote, and our
goal remains to count every valid vote,”
Rey said. “Our values were consistent
when we were behind, and now that we
have the lead, remain the same. We don’t
cherry-pick voters, and we certainly don’t
exclude voters from communities of color,
as others have tried to do.”
at about 10:15 a.m. on July 9 at their
Middle Village facility.
Th e two top vote-getters in the election
– Borough President Melinda Katz
and public defender Tiff any Cabán – are
separated by just 16 votes, with Katz having
taken the lead following last week’s
count of paper ballots. She had overcome
a 1,100-vote defi cit following the June 25
primary vote.
Th e city Board of Elections expects the
full manual recount in Middle Village of
over 93,000 ballots to take two to three
weeks, with the fi rst day alone being spent
simply sorting ballot boxes from reading
machines into separate zones.
About 50 people are at work overseeing
and executing the meticulous process.
Shortly before the recount began that
morning, lawyers for the Katz and Cabán
campaigns were in Queens Supreme
Court in Jamaica for a hearing on Cabán’s
lawsuit seeking to have 114 affi davit ballots
counted. A judge adjourned the case
until aft er the recount, determining that a
decision shouldn’t be made until there is
an authoritative count.
Th e recount is expected to take into
account absentee ballots, affi davits that
have been verifi ed, ballots that were read
properly by the scanner and those that
were improperly fi lled out but make the
voter’s intention clear.
With ballots being similar to Scantron
sheets, if a voter does completely fi ll in
the bubble and instead checks or puts an
X next to their choice, their vote was not
taken into account on June 25.
Cabán’s team fi led a lawsuit against the
BOE preemptive to the count of absentee
ballots on July 3 claiming up to 2,500
affi davits had been unlawfully nixed. Th e
lawsuit aims to redeem 114 of the affi davits,
and Cabán’s camp believes they will
gain anywhere between 300 and 400 votes
from the manual recount.
Th e votes have been split between seven
candidates, with Cabán fi nishing the primary
with 39 percent of the vote to Katz’s
38 percent. Many voters submitted ballots
for Councilman Rory Lancman despite
him dropping out of the race and backing
Katz four days before the primary.
With only about 11 percent of voters
turning out, other ballots were cast for
Gregory Lasak, Mina Malik, Jose Nieves
and Betty Lugo.
Public defender Tiff any Caban (left) and Queens Borough President Melinda Katz
Photo: Mark Hallum/QNS
A worker sorting ballots at the Board of Elections' Middle Village facility on July 9.
Queens DA recount
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