I win DA primary!
Recount gives Katz narrow edge in Qns.
Melinda Katz claimed victory Thursday in the tighter-than-tight Queens district attorney race after a recount was finally wrapped up after two weeks — but insurgent Tiffany Caban vowed to fight on in court.
“Now that every vote has been counted and recounted … the people of Queens have chosen Melinda Katz,” her campaign announced.
Katz, the Queens borough president, held onto a slender lead of about 60 votes as the final votes were tabulated in a laborious two-week recount of more than 90,000 votes cast in the June 25 Democratic primary.
Despite the recount being done, Caban insisted she would go in court to get more than 100 rejected affidavit ballots counted.
“This race is not over. We are going to continue to fight to make sure every single valid vote is counted,” Caban said.
The affidavit ballots were rejected on technical grounds. If those ballots are counted, it could potentially tip the seesaw race back in her favor.
Caban said she was suing “to protect Queens voters from being disenfranchised by New York’s restrictive and undemocratic voting laws.”
Caban, a queer Latina public defender, appeared to have pulled off a stunning upset on Election Night when initial counts had her up by more than 1,000 votes over Katz, who is the choice of the Democratic establishment.
Katz stormed back after absentee ballots were tallied to take the lead by just 20 votes.
Caban sliced into that lead by four votes after a batch of affidavit ballots were tallied.
Since then, Katz’s lead grew steadily as the recount has plodded on. She held a roughly 60-ballot edge heading into Thursday’s final day of counting, with two of Caban’s strongholds yet to be tallied.
Election workers recounted assembly districts in numerical order, meaning roughly from east to west or from the border with suburban Long Island to closer to Manhattan. In practical terms that means Caban’s strongholds in Long Island City and Astoria were left till the very end.
Board of Elections officials refused to offer updates on the recount, saying their policy is to go from unofficial results on Election Night to a final certified count, with no updates in between.
“The process has been open and transparent from day one,” said Valerie Vasquez, a Board of Elections spokeswoman. “We just do not release the results until they are certified.”
The BOE is expected to declare the official winner on July 30.