Posted on 06/30/2012 10:12:52 AM PDT by neverdem
NEW YORK — It’s been four days since Charlie Rangel’s primary. And it’s still not entirely clear who won. The veteran Democratic congressman might be the winner in New York’s 13th District, but no one really knows. It’s a bizarre situation that just keeps getting weirder, a strange case of missing precincts, questionable ballots and utter confusion over who’s to blame for the mess and when the race might be settled. (PHOTOS: Charlie Rangel's career) What’s known is this: As of Friday evening, 32 precincts – six percent of all votes cast – had yet to be accounted for. And another 2,447 affidavit ballots and 667 absentee votes hadn’t been counted yet either. According to the city Board of Elections, Rangel’s lead over second-place finisher state Sen. Adriano Espaillat stood at 1,032 votes, with enough outstanding ballots to alter the outcome. Naturally, the courts are now involved. On Friday, the state Supreme Court agreed to hear a lawsuit brought by the Espaillat campaign, asking it to examine the squirrelly vote-counting process. A hearing is scheduled for Monday. Before things went off the rails, Tuesday night had been an evening of celebration and vindication for Rangel, who seemed to have survived the most serious reelection threat of his 42-year career in the House. After initial tallies showed the congressional titan jumping to a 20-point lead over Espaillat, Rangel took to the stage at Sylvia’s, the famed soul food institution located on Harlem’s Lenox Avenue, to declare victory and then party late into the evening with boisterous supporters. But as Tuesday turned to Wednesday and more votes trickled in, something strange happened: Rangel’s margin of victory began to shrink, first to five points and then, by midday Wednesday, to two points. (Also on POLITICO: Rangel's love for Obama unrequited) After delivering a concession statement the previous night, Espaillat released a new statement Wednesday that suggested the race wasn’t yet settled. “Our message of bringing bold, new ideas to change Congress connected with voters, as demonstrated by our strong show of support and the voting results that continue to come in,” he said. Not much has changed since then. And the race might remain in limbo for days, if not weeks. Valerie Vazquez, a spokeswoman for the New York City Board of Elections, said that with the July 4th holiday approaching, officials wouldn’t begin processing the affidavit and absentee ballots until the end of next week. And should the margin between the two candidates diminish to one-half of one percent or less of all votes cast, she said, the elections board would undertake a manual review of all ballots cast. The spectacle — and the surrounding chaos — has the city’s political class staring in disbelief.
“The fact that we’re wondering who won the race at this point is a little silly,” said Doug Forand, a New York-based Democratic consultant whose firm worked for Espaillat. “It could end up being a long time before we know the outcome.” “Between questions about vote totals and paper ballots, it’s enough to throw the race into question,” he added. “I think Rangel comes out on top, but at this point it’s no guarantee.” The race continued to play out Friday, as election workers in three offices in New York City scrambled to reassess votes that had been cast three days earlier. At one office in lower Manhattan, officials hunched over computers in a heavily air-conditioned room, trying to determine whether voters who filled out affidavit ballots on Tuesday would be eligible for their votes to be counted. At another location, election workers gathered in a cavernous, warehouse-like room and, one by one, uploaded memory cards from voting booths across the upper Manhattan congressional district onto computers in hope of coming to a final vote tally that, to this point, has been elusive. How the fate of a congressman who was once one of the most powerful officials in Washington came to be decided under banana republic circumstances is a question that has baffled even seasoned New York pols. “How can it be that two days after the primary, things are such a mess? Is this how a democracy functions?” Ruben Diaz Sr., a state senator from the Bronx who was neutral in the race, wrote in an essay published in local papers Friday. “Will this mean that from now on, candidates will have to wait two or three days before conceding the seat, or do we have to send the people from the Board of Elections to a counting and additions course?” In an interview, Vazquez, the spokeswoman for the embattled Board of Elections, defended the office’s efforts, saying that it had simply followed the vote counting process as prescribed by city law. The reason six percent of votes had not yet been tabulated, Vazquez said, is that the police officers tasked with providing an unofficial record of the data from those precincts after securing voting boxes on election night had not done so. Once election workers downloaded voting files from each precinct to reach an official total, Vazquez said, a complete count would be reached. On Friday morning, Vazquez said a final tally would arrive by 2 p.m. that day. That hour, however, came and went without any results. By the end of the day, there was still no news. While election workers continued the tedious task of reviewing ballots, there were indications that tensions between the Rangel and Espaillat camps were beginning to escalate.
From Espaillat’s backers came accusations that Rangel’s powerful supporters were influencing the vote counting, slowing the process and preventing the challenger’s side from receiving information. And they say they are particularly concerned about the remaining six percent of ballots that have yet to be counted – which, they contend, come from areas where the state senator receives the most support. “It’s crazy,” said Espaillat chief of staff Aneiry Batista, who spent Friday watching officials download reams of voting data. “I’m frustrated by the system,” she added. “They don’t want to give us answers.” At the lower Manhattan elections office, monitors for both campaigns sat on opposite sides of a room, staring at each other and arguing as votes were examined in an office next door. “They don’t care about the numbers that haven’t been counted,” Joe Louis, an Espaillat supporter, said in the direction of Rangel’s volunteers. In his hand, Louis held a thick sheaf of papers showing voting data that, he said, had zeros for Espaillat in neighborhoods like Inwood and Washington Heights — places where the state senator has strong levels of support. “You don’t know the statute,” a Rangel volunteer shot back. Ethnic and racial tensions also are bubbling to the surface. Espaillat’s backers contend that many Hispanic voters had been turned away from the polls on Tuesday as they tried to cast ballots for the state senator, who is trying to become the first Dominican-American member of Congress. Leonel Fernandez, the president of the Dominican Republic, has reached out to Espaillat to see if he can offer any assistance, according to an Espaillat aide. On Friday afternoon, a group of liberal activists had been scheduled to march in front of the Federal Election Commission in downtown Washington, protesting what they saw as a concerted effort to disenfranchise Hispanic voters in the race and to call on the office “to investigate claims of voter fraud and intervene in this disputed primary.” So far, the candidates themselves have managed to keep a distance from the chaos. Espaillat has not made any public comments about the race since Wednesday, and Rangel simply shrugged when asked about the uncertainty in a Thursday TV interview. “I’m not hearing anything because I’ve been on the floor, I’ve been at legislative meetings, I’ve been at caucuses,” he said. If Rangel or his allies in Washington are concerned about him losing a race that seemed in the bag just a few days ago, they’re not showing any signs. On Thursday afternoon, two days after the election, Rangel was seen walking into a Democratic caucus meeting with Michigan Rep. John Conyers, the longest-serving member of the same Congressional Black Caucus that Rangel co-founded. “All hail the king!” Conyers said of Rangel. John Bresnahan contributed to this report.
In NY, you must change registration 5 or 6 months in advance. I had to change in late October 2007 in order to vote in the primary in February or March of 2008 for Fred Thompson, but he dropped out. The dead don't vote to the best of my knowledge, but the demented in nursing homes do. I witnessed it.
I want to see how they reat to Fast and Furious' hundreds of dead Mexicans!
I don't know, but Harlem isn't that small, and Inwood and Washington Heights are separate, distinct and north of Harlem. In the 1990s Rangel's district extended, maybe it still does, into the Marble Hill and Kingsbridge neighborhoods of the Bronx, just north of Inwood.
"In his hand, Louis held a thick sheaf of papers showing voting data that, he said, had zeros for Espaillat in neighborhoods like Inwood and Washington Heights — places where the state senator has strong levels of support."
Koch brothers need to create some ads to run here...O war against Hispanics.
LOL, but Rangel's father was born in Puerto Rico, according to Wikipedia. I've read in more reputable sources that one of his parents was from Puerto Rico. Let them do O war against Mexicans via Fast and Furious....
What will happen, during the ‘12 November election? While it’s too late for the major political parties to have new candidates start running for this Congressional seat, will there be some Independent candidate(s) who will run for this seat, because of the present, ongoing “mess”?
It's very unlikely. Whoever wins the rat nomination has won on Election Day for at least four decades.. It's about as safe as Pelosi's seat.
"But I know Smith & Wesson" is the correct retort, no?
I understand the sentiment. However, given the screwed-up nature of our vote-counting system I do have some empathy.
“I thought he was retired and enjoying life on the beaches of some banana republic somewhere? “
He is. The US. Thanks to 0!
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