Tiffany Caban declared victory over Melinda Katz on election night. (Laura Hanrahan)
July 3, 2019 By Laura Hanrahan
The count of roughly 4,000 absentee and affidavit ballots is underway in the Queens District Attorney Democratic Primary.
Counting began early this morning at the Board of Elections’ (BOE) Forest Hills office and is expected to go until 9 p.m. this evening and may continue on Friday.
BOE received close to 6,300 paper ballots but about 2,000 of those have reportedly been deemed invalid for a variety of reasons, including the ballot being mailed too late, the form being filled out incorrectly or the voter not being a registered Democrat.
The final count will determine whether public defender Tiffany Cabán will hold her lead over Borough President Melinda Katz in the contentious race. Prior to today’s count, Cabán had the upper hand with a narrow margin of 1,199 votes.
Despite the fact that Cabán claimed victory on election night, and that the absentee ballot results are not expected to change the outcome in favor of Katz, the Borough President has refused to concede until all the votes are counted.
Cabán appears to be preparing for the unexpected, though, having retained election attorney Jerry Goldfeder. She has also filed a preemptive lawsuit against the BOE, Katz and the five other candidates on the ballot in case Cabán’s team determines that the validity of the results needs to be reviewed by a judge.
The winner of the Democratic primary will face off against Republican Candidate Daniel Kogan and is likely to win in the general election. Kogan has said that he would step aside for judge Greg Lasak—who came third in the Democratic primary—to run as the GOP candidate.
Others in the Republican party have suggested that the nomination should go to Katz if she were to lose to Cabán. Katz, however, issued a statement yesterday dismissing the idea.
“All votes must be counted in the Democratic Primary for Queens District Attorney, but regardless of outcome, I have declined the Republican Party nomination for Queens District Attorney,” Katz said. “I believe in Democratic principles and they have led my career.”
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3 Comments
Queens Eagle reports that “Cabán’s campaign has called people who submitted affidavits to find out who they voted for.” Plus their lawsuit insists that each Paper Ballot AND the accompanying envelope be photocopied.
Outrageous invasion of privacy!
Wonder if AOC is there to witness the count and tweet about it?
Is your problem with a government official tweeting or with AOC? AOC & Cabán have many supporters; negative remarks are only going to make you more miserable at the end of the day.