Ballot counting problems in New York City:
nypost.com
RE-TALLY OF 200,000 BALLOTS COULD GIVE FERRER RUNOFF WIN
By MAGGIE HABERMAN
October 14, 2001 -- Mark Green's win of the Democratic mayoral primary runoff over Fernando Ferrer was thrown into question yesterday, as city Board of Elections officials said the unofficial vote tally was off by potentially 200,000 ballots.
It was the latest curve ball in an already unusual mayor's race thrown into chaos by the World Trade Center disaster, which happened the day of the original primary. And it cast a new shadow over the general election.
The board will start counting the ballots on the voting machines Wednesday, and expects to be done within 24 hours. They'll move on to the paper ballots Thursday. Representatives for the candidates will be able to witness the count.
After an acrimonious final week, Green was crowned the winner of Thursday's runoff with 52 percent of the vote to Ferrer's 48 percent, in an unofficial count compiled by the Associated Press, which called the race at exactly 10:30 p.m.
That meant Green won by a little under 30,000 votes.
Board Deputy Executive Director Joseph Gentili, stressing that his office didn't put together the results reported after Thursday's runoff, said he thinks the official tally will end up with the same result, with Green narrowly on top, because the double-counts seemed to be scattershot throughout the districts.
"As the doubles are pulled out, they should affect each candidate equally - but that's my opinion," Gentili said.
Gentili also said turnout could have been as low as 612,000, but stressed that number might turn out to be much higher.
"No one knows the extent of this problem," Gentili said.
Green campaign spokesman Joe DePlasco said board officials had contacted them and told them the same thing.
A spokesman for Ferrer couldn't be reached.
But Bronx Democratic County Chairman Roberto Ramirez, a key Ferrer adviser, told The New York Times that he's very concerned that the results may call into question the legitimacy of Green's nomination.
And if the results stays the same, it could add new fuel to a bitter rift developing between Green and supporters of Ferrer who feel the public advocate made race a factor in the runoff battle.
For Thursday's runoff, the board merged some of the city's roughly 5,600 election districts onto single voting machines - a standard practice in elections other than the general election.
Gentili said the board sent the AP a list of the districts where machines would be listed. But apparently votes in possibly hundreds of districts were double-counted.
In several cases, there were votes listed in districts where voting machines weren't even sent out, he said. Gentili said board officials were scratching their heads the day after the runoff after the incredibly high turnout that the unofficial count put at more than 800,000 - more people than had voted in the Sept. 25 primary.
Runoffs have always drawn fewer people than the primary. That, in part, prompted officials to start looking at the tally. They then started realizing there were errors, Gentili said. |
