The Intricacies of the Board of Elections Vote Counting Process

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Board of Elections is currently obtaining the official voter statistics for the primary elections through recanvasing the polls and opening and validating paper ballots.

Here is some more information about how the process goes down:

Usually, the Board of Elections waits two weeks to open absentee ballots. However, because of the run-off elections scheduled to be held in two weeks, absentee ballots are being opened and counted today.

Along with absentee ballots, the bipartisan Board of Elections officials are also counting other paper ballots (such as emergency ballots and affidavits) and the votes in polling machines.

While these votes are being counted, in contested races it is most likely that election lawyers will be watching the process like hawks. It is usually hard for election lawyers to challenge absentee and polling machine votes, but they are ready to pounce on all affidavits.

Affidavits are filled out at polling sites when a voter has a problem such as not finding their name at the registration table. While the bipartisan Board of Elections officials determine whether an affidavit is valid, election lawyers can challenge their judgment and argue over illegible signatures, forgeries, etc. Arguments over these affidavits could possibly be sent to court.

Valerie Vasquez-Rivera, a Board of Elections spokesperson, is hopeful that the process will be complete by September 21 and the election results will be certified by Board of Elections commissioners by September 22. However, if candidates in close races such as in the 14th district are willing to hire election lawyers and argue over the process, it could take longer.

Neil Rosenstein, an election specialist for New York Public Interest Research Group, says that New Yorkers should not be so anxious about obtaining official election results. "We seem to be obsessed with this need for instant gratification," he said. "Elections are meant to best represent the will of the people and sometimes that takes a little bit of time."

Bronx City Council Election Results

As the Democratic primary election results for Bronx City Council members rolled in last night, it became clear that most incumbents have a strong hold on their seats for another four years.

Out of the eight Bronx City Council districts, only four incumbents had challengers in the primary election. Out of those four City Council elections, three incumbents kept a firm hold of their position, while another appears to be out.

In the 11th City Council district, incumbent Oliver Koppell was challenged by Tony Perez Cassino. Despite a heated primary campaign race, Koppell won the primary with 63.9% of the vote. Koppell had 5,348 votes and Cassino had 3,021 votes.

In the 12th City Council district, incumbent Larry Seabrook scraped by to win 55.28 % of the vote despite a series of controversial financial accusations. Seabrook defeated Andy King, Jerome Rice and Sebastian Ulanga in the primary. Seabrook had 4,871 votes, King had 2,830 votes, Rice had 778 votes and Ulanga had 333 votes.

In the 16th City Council district, incumbent Helen Foster defeated political newcomer Carlos Sierra with 60.54% of the vote. Foster had 2,654 votes and Sierra had 1,730 votes.

In the 14th City Council district, Fernando Cabrera has a good chance of replacing the incumbent, Maria Baez. Last night, poll counts listed Cabrera as having 1,937 votes, Baez as having 1,847 votes and Yudelka Tapia as having 1,250 votes.

The above numbers are still unofficial and not yet approved by the Board of Elections. Although the poll count is usually a good indicator of the winning candidate, in close races such as the 14th District City Council primary, official numbers are needed to declare the winner.

More information on the 14th district City Council race to come.

Bronx News Roundup, Sept. 16

The day following the primaries, many news sources are buzzing about the results. The race in District 14, which we blogged extensively about yesterday is drawing city-wide coverage because Maria Baez may join the list of incumbents who were voted out. But it's still too close to call. Baez is currently trailing Cabrera by 90 votes. [More on this later today]

A Bronx elementary school is overcrowding its classrooms.

It was a very emotional day in court for a girl whose mother was killed in Bronx after a cab driver being robbed at knife point crashed his car. The robber is on trial for second degree murder.

A Bronx girl and her Uncle are filing a law suit against a catering company that used a photo of the two plaintiffs at her Sweet Sixteen party in wedding promotional material.

A 12-year veteran NYPD police officer is being charged with injuring a man during an incident in the Bronx back in March.

A Bronx man is now $168 million richer after winning the lottery last month.

Baseball enthusiasts will be pleased to find out the Yankees announced they will be reducing ticket prices for next season.

Yankees fans may get more than they paid for though after reading this article in the NY Times about the massive brawl that broke out in the stadium last night.

Primary Postcard: Quiet Polls, Funky Machines?

There's no City Council race here in the 15th District to rally the troops - both challengers to incumbent Councilman Joel Rivera were knocked off the ballot in August - but folks are coming out to vote in the other races, albeit without much enthusiasm.

"I'm just used to voting," said a woman exiting the polls at PS 92 here on the corner of E 179th St. and Crotona Ave. "I think it's important." (We had some shy voters here at PS 92; nobody wanted their names used). Asked if she was excited by any particular race, she laughed.

And that's about the response we got from everyone, including poll workers, who said the turnout so far seemed "extra slow," even for a primary. As of 2:30, about 75 people had voted here.

Adding to the slow day, poll workers said the machines here were down for most of the morning; workers said one candidate (they didn't know who) was left off the ballot, and voters were turned away and told to return later, until the name was added around noon. We put in a call to the Board of Elections to find out what happened; we'll post as soon as we hear back.

Anyone out there hear or experience anything similar?

Final Primary Thoughts (Most importantly, remember to vote tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 15)

Well, we've arrived. The moment of truth. Tomorrow, primary voters in the Bronx will decide who they want to represent them in City Council. (We'd say there's still the matter of the general election, but let's be honest here.)

There are three, maybe four Council races in the borough that are worth watching because they could be close (or at least relatively so): the 14th, 11th, 12th and maybe the 16th. In each of those races, the incumbent is not guaranteed victory in tomorrow's primary. And if any of them go down, it will be an exception to the rule.

Last week, the NY Times, in a story about 14th District incumbent Maria Baez's perilous re-election battle -- she's facing two well-financed opponents, Fernando Cabrera and Yudelka Tapia -- reported that incumbents have won re-election in 97% of all Council races over the past 20 years. That means, if any of those incumbents gets knocked off we could be staring at history when the final results are tallied.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm excited to see some political competition.

Candidates ask us who we're endorsing in the various races. Our answer is always the same: we don't endorse. What we do endorse is informed voting and political engagement. And through our coverage and our debates we've hoped to foster that.

On that note, kudos to Oliver Koppell, the 11th District councilman, for being the only incumbent to engage his (or her) challenger(s) in a debate. Baez? A no show. Larry Seabrook (12th) and Helen Foster (16th)? Nope.

As a voter, you have to ask yourself: Why aren't these people willing to debate their opponents? It's not because they were too busy.

In any case, we're hoping some of the competition and campaigns have invigorated a Bronx voting bloc that is shockingly apathetic.

Last fall, Pedro Espada was voted in by less than 5,000 voters in a senate district with more than 100,000 registered voters. Four years ago, only 17% of those eligible actually voted in the 11th district.

So? Vote. That's all we're saying.

Here's a few last-minute snippets from the races.

• 11th District Challenger Tony Cassino read the Norwood News late last week and immediately sent out a flyer with Koppell's quote about why he's not a big fan of public referendums like the two that installed term limits. Basically, Koppell said the public isn't "sophisticated enough" to handle big decisions.
• Tapia was endorsed today by the Daily News.
• Cabrera was endorsed recently by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
• The Tapia campaign continues to attack Cabrera's campaign, while Cabrera focusses his sights on Baez. At the same time, Tapia's campaign continues to leave former strategists in its wake.
• In the last few days, Tapia's campaign has tried to say Cabrera had a poor attendance record during his tenure at Community Board 7. It's unclear exactly what his attendance was, Board 7 district manager Fernando Tirado, says records were not well kept during those years. While Cabrera's attendance record wasn't perfect, it wasn't atrocious either, Tirado says.
• Caberera's campaign is upset that Tapia is handing out literature linking her and Ruben Diaz Jr. who has endorsed Cabrera. Diaz released a statement saying, "While other candidates are trying to mislead the public by distributing material with my picture, I urge all democrats to vote for Dr. Fernando Cabrera in the primary."
• Tapia, having last month fired her campaign manager Onix Sosa after he took a job with Espada (Sosa was then fired for his long record of mismanaging apartment buildings), is now dealing with another disgruntled former advisor in Victor Solis.
• Solis, a veteran political operator who used to work for Bloomberg, says Tapia owes a friend of his, Carlos Garcia, $6,000. Garcia, in a phone interview, said he leant the money to Tapia in early June because he believed in the Tapia campaign, based moslty on the advice of his good friend, Solis. Elias Alcantera, a spokesman for the campaign, says Tapia and Solis had "personal" issues that had nothing to do with the campaign. Solis showed the Norwood News a check from Tapia to Carlos Garcia, a school teacher, for $6,000. Garcia and Solis are both listed as contributors to the campaign.
• According to city records, Tapia's campaign has received $20,900 in loans and only paid back $8,500. Three people were listed as giving her those loans. Garcia was not one of them. The campaign finance board only recently released public funds to Tapia's campaign. Not disclosing a loan, a spokesman for the board said, would result in a significant penalty for any campaign.
• We have no idea what Baez is doing. She didn't call us back today.

Vote!

UPDATE: Someone from Baez's office called us late in the afternoon to say that the councilwoman is planning to vote at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning at PS 33 (on Jerome Avenue near Fordham Road). In the evening, she's hosting an event at the Monte Carlo Room, at 2700 Jerome Ave., to celebrate what she hopes will be a hard-fought victory.

Bronx Primary Results

There were a number of contested Democratic primaries in the Bronx. Here are the results:

Civil Court - Bronx
Elizabeth Taylor, 19,228 votes , 54.09%
Maria Matos, 10,406 votes, 29.27%
Verena Powell, 5,917 votes, 16.64%

State Assembly - District 79
Michael Benjamin, 2301 votes, 61.64%
Sigfredo Gonzalez, 1432 votes, 38.36%

State Assembly - District 83
Carl Heastie, 3667 votes, 78.25%
Sherman Browne, 1,019 votes, 21.75%

State Assembly - District 85
Ruben Diaz, 3,157 votes, 85.58%
Israel Cruz, 532 votes, 14.42%

State Assembly - District 86
Nelson Castro, 1,513 votes, 62.62%
Mike Soto, 903 votes, 37.38%

State Senate - District 33
Pedro Espada, 4,615 votes, 59.60%
Efrain Gonzalez, 3,128 votes, 40.40%

Source: NY1