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Judge Mulling Last Votes in State's Last Race

 

 

 

Email This StoryPrint This Story Dec 21, 2004 5:32 pm US/Eastern(1010 WINS) (WHITE PLAINS) Seven weeks after Election Day, lawyers gave their final arguments Tuesday on whether several hundred unopened ballots, the last remaining votes

in the state's only undecided election, should be counted to settle a state Senate race in Westchester.At issue was about 510 handwritten ballots cast by residents of the 35th Senate District who went to the wrong polling place, or the wrong table at the correct polling place. The district takes in most of Yonkers and several villages to the north.Republican lawyer John Ciampoli, working to keep Sen. Nicholas Spano in office, argued that such voters ``are not qualified voters under the law'' even if they did what poll workers told them to. Democratic lawyer Henry Berger, supporting challenger Andrea Stewart-Cousins, said the law protects those voters from losing their right to vote.State Supreme Court Justice Ira Warshawsky said he would rule by Thursday on that issue and on the votes of 45 poll workers who used absentee ballots to vote. Any ballots he approves would be opened and counted on Monday, he said.Whichever side loses the election is

expected to appeal at least once, and lawyers said even quick work by the appeals courts would take the case well past Jan. 1, when the victor is scheduled to start the new term in Albany.Spano is the assistant majority leader of the Senate and his defeat would be a blow to the Republicans, who have already lost three seats to Democrats this year. Stewart-Cousins is a Westchester County legislator.If the judge rules against counting the votes, Spano will have at least a temporary victory because he is 58 votes ahead of out of nearly 127,000 cast.If the judge rules that most or all the votes should be counted, Stewart-Cousins could win, because she has picked up a large majority of the handwritten, provisional ballots similar to the remaining, uncounted ones. Of the 10 ballots that were opened Tuesday, she got eight votes, Spano none and two were blank.In addition, most of the poll workers whose ballots have been challenged are Democrats. Berger argued

last week that they voted by absentee ballot because that was the traditional practice in Westchester. Spano's lawyers want those ballots disqualified because absentee ballots, by law, are for use only when the voter is out of the county.Outside court, Berger said, ``A lot of what the Board (of Elections) did is essentially indefensible.'' He said that after the election is settled, Democrats would take ``a further look at how this election was run.''``Clearly there was an indication that this was going to be a close election and things were done in Yonkers,'' he said. He did not elaborate, but Democrats suspicions were raised when a recount of the machine vote narrowed Spano's lead by more than 1,600 votes.Berger said the issue of voting at the wrong polling place has never reached an appellate court in New York, so the eventual outcome will be making new law.(© MMIV Infinity Broadcasting Corp. . This

material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. In the interest of timeliness, this story is fed directly from the newswire and may contain occasional typographical errors.) Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today! Download Messenger Now

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Judge Rules That 170 Ballots Can Be Counted in

Westchester Race

By KIRK SEMPLE

 

Published: December 24, 2004

 

HITE PLAINS, Dec. 23 - In a decision that appeared to

favor State Senator Nicholas A. Spano, a state judge

ruled Thursday that only about one-third of the

remaining contested ballots should be counted in the

senator's disputed race against his Democratic

challenger, Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

 

Mr. Spano's lawyers had urged the judge to toss out

about 550 contested ballots, while lawyers for Ms.

Stewart-Cousins, a Westchester County legislator, had

argued that those ballots should be counted. The

judge, Ira B. Warshawsky of State Supreme Court, ruled

that about 170 ballots should be counted. Mr. Spano

had been leading by 58 votes.

 

Both campaigns vowed to appeal.

 

Jeffrey H. Pearlman, a lawyer for the Stewart-Cousins

campaign, said campaign officials plan to ask the

county Board of Elections to begin counting the

ballots on Monday. But Anthony J. Mangone, a lawyer

for the Spano campaign, said the senator would seek a

court order to block the count until after appeals.

The district includes most of Yonkers and several

villages to the north.

 

At issue in Justice Warshawsky's ruling were affidavit

ballots cast by voters who were in the right polling

place but voted in the wrong election district,

affidavit ballots cast by voters who were in the wrong

polling place, and absentee ballots cast by poll

workers. Voters whose names do not appear on a

district's registration rolls may cast affidavit, or

provisional, ballots.

 

The judge allowed the count of the ballots cast by

voters in the right polling place but in the wrong

election district - about 160 ballots in all. In

addition, he allowed 10 contested ballots that had

been discarded by the election board based on maps

that were found to be flawed.

 

 

 

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