By: Robert Bouyant
Queens Borough President Melinda Katz claimed victory Thursday after a recount gave her a slight lead in the Democratic primary—but her opponent plans to take the battle to court, Crain’s reported.
More than 85,000 votes were counted electronically in the June 25th primary for Queens District attorney election to replace longtime DA Richard Brown, who recently passed. Last week, after the initial count, 31-year-old Tiffany Cabán, held the lead. The progressive public defender declared victory over the six democratic candidates who competed, earning 39.6 percent of the votes. Katz came in close with 38.3 percent of the votes, with 99 percent of precincts reporting. Katz, formerly a NYC councilwoman, refused to concede to defeat, saying that there were still absentee ballots that had not yet been accounted for. Cabán’s lead stood at 1.3 percentage points, which is above the 0.5-point threshold that would require a recount. Still, she pointed out that there were roughly 3,400 absentee ballots still being counted, JV previously reported.
Katz stunned the city, amassing a hefty percentage of the absentee votes to make up for the 1,090-vote lead Cabán held over her. Astonishingly, Katz must have won over two-thirds of the mailed and signed votes. After a count of absentee and affidavit votes, Katz at the time lead by 20 votes. This extremely close result triggered an automatic recount.
A three-week manual tally of ballots cast in last month’s election left Katz, the preferred candidate of the local party establishment, 60 votes ahead of insurgent Tiffany Cabán., as per Crain’s
The borough president Friday declared victory for the second time this month.
“Now that every valid vote has been counted and recounted, the results confirm once again that the people of Queens have chosen Melinda Katz as the Democratic nominee for district attorney,” her campaign said in a statement.
The New York City Board of Elections officially declared Monday that Queens Borough President Melinda Katz narrowly topped her Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-backed challenger, Tiffany Cabán, in the Democratic primary to become the county’s next district attorney, NY Post reported
But the fight for the party’s nomination will continue Wednesday in Queens Supreme Court, where public defender Cabán plans to argue the BOE improperly excluded hundreds of ballots that could once again tip the scales in her favor, NY Post reported.
The parties — that were the subject of the litigation that’s coming up — were given full, fair, open and transparent access to every step of these proceedings,” said Board of Elections executive director Michael Ryan. “At the conclusion, the faith of the public will rest easy.”
The winner of the Democratic contest will become the heavy favorite to win the job in the November general election in the increasingly socialist leftist leading borough, as the local Republican party has churned out candidates who can barely scrape up 20% of the vote in most races across NYC. Essentially, NYC is becoming a one-party city, with two variations of Democrats, liberals and radical leftists such as Cabán.
