Politics & Government

Court Rules Against Affidavit Ballots in Seventh Senate Race

Results of voting machine audit due Thursday.

Attorneys in the disputed  seat between incumbent , D-Port Washington, and Mineola , R, I, C, were back in  Wednesday morning over ballots used by voters who were allegedly not on the voting rolls on election day, but who were allowed to vote by affidavit.

At issue were 113 of 288 envelope affidavit ballots which were declared invalid. The ballots were reportedly not reviewed by Democratic commissioner William Biamonte. Two  have been called upon to both speed up the  and to get the number of disputed ballots down to a manageable number.

Johnson campaign attorney Steven Schlesinger argued that 49 of the ballots are "good" and should be counted, saying they were improperly canceled. The exact number changed several times during the court hearing between 48 and 49.

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Martins campaign attorney Peter Bee and Republican Board of Election chair John Ryan began reviewing the reasons for the affidavit ballots being declared invalid one at a time with Nassau County Board of Elections Chief Clerk Lauren Corcoran-Doolan in the courtroom.

One of the specific cases involved voter Marjorie Case, Sen. Johnson's sister-in-law. Case's name was not in the registration book having possibly been removed since her last address was reportedly in San Francisco Corcoran-Doolan said, adding that there was "clearly intent" to vote and Case was "timely to vote in this election," meaning that she had voted in elections for several past consecutive years.

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Johnson, who along with his wife was present in the court room Wednesday, did not offer comment, only confirming the fact that Chase was an in-law and that he planned to run again for the New York State Senate in 2012 no matter the outcome of the court's ruling. Martins currently , up from 429 Tuesday.

Ryan said that he was "shocked" that 38 of the 49 ballots were Democratic in nature, two were Republican and the balance were comprised of balances and independents.

Schlesinger stated that the cancellation of voter registration is done by computers with cards sent out. Typically three cards are sent out to voters seeking updates to their registration information before they are removed from the rolls.  The computers in charge of these tasks are within the State Board of Elections.

Bee called the argument a  "desperate" move to reconstitute votes and that "for better or worse" the court cannot retroactively re-validate votes after an election.

"You're telling me that their registration should be reinstated," Judge Ira Warshawsky said to Schlesinger, asking "do you have anything" that would grant the court the power to reconstitute votes. "Errors of the Board should not be held against the voter" Schlesinger said, citing several statutes.

"Are you now going to challenge our own workers' training?" Warshawsky said to the respective chairs. "You are trying to undermine your own (employees)."  Schlesinger said that he was "prepared to put on witnesses" to testify that there was no intent to cancel the registrations of the voters in question.

"He cannot overcome the bar," that voter registration cannot be canceled post election, Bee said referring to Schlesinger.

Warshawsky said that the court feels it is "bound" by the 2004 decision of Joseph Mondello vs. the Nassau County Board of Elections over the canvassing of ballots, lacking the authority to make any decision and denied the application to open and count the affidavit ballots.

The parties are due back in court Thursday afternoon to hear the report of the three percent .


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