Thousands of absentee ballots tossed in tight Maloney-Patel House race
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Incumbent Rep. Carolyn Maloney leads Suraj Patel by 648 votes after the machine tally in the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th Congressional District. But tens of thousands of NY-12 voters cast absentee ballots. Photos courtesy of the campaigns.
By David Brand
A tight race between veteran Congressmember Carolyn Maloney and challenger Suraj Patel has emerged as New York City’s most closely watched Congressional primary — but about 20 percent of voters may end up having no say in the final outcome.
One-in-five mail-in ballots have been tossed out in New York’s 12th Congressional District, which includes Western Queens, Northwest Brooklyn and the East Side of Manhattan, according to Board of Elections documents reported by The Intercept.
The absentee ballots are crucial in the contest, where Maloney, who has served in Congress since 1993, led Patel by 648 votes after the machine tally following the June 23 Democratic primary. Roughly 65,000 NY-12 voters cast their ballots by mail, The New York Times reported.
Maloney received 41.7 percent of the in-person votes compared to Patel’s 40.1 percent. Two other candidates, Lauren Ashcraft and Pete Harrison, received about 18 percent of the overall vote total. In Queens, Patel received 540 more votes than Maloney.
On Thursday, the four candidates called on the BOE to count every absentee ballot that was invalidated because the U.S. Postal Service did not postmark the envelope or because the BOE received the ballots after June 30.
“Put bluntly: A missing postmark, over which voters had no control, should not disenfranchise those voters,” the candidates wrote.
“We stand together in asking Governor Cuomo to update his executive order to permit the Board of Elections to accept all absentee ballots received without a postmark,” they added.
Patel went even further, suing the Board of Elections in federal court to demand that all ballots mailed and received before June 30 be counted, even if the ballot does not have a postmark.
“A 1-in-5 disenfranchisement rate is far too high for a developed democracy,” he said in a statement.
Other plaintiffs on the lawsuit include Emily Gallagher, a north Brooklyn Assembly candidate, and a handful of voters. Former Queensborough Community College Prof. Kathryn Stabile, 82, joined the lawsuit after noting that she did not receive her absentee ballot until June 23, the day of the election, Gothamist reported. The plaintiffs are represented by Queens-based attorney Ali Najmi and J. Remy Green.
The BOE declined to comment.
For the first time, an executive order issued by Gov. Andrew Cuomo allowed all eligible voters to cast their ballot by mail if they submitted an absentee ballot application, but many voters reported receiving their absentee ballots after election day — or not at all.
The absentee ballot count for NY-12 will continue next week inside Queens Borough Hall.
Check with queenseagle.com for the latest election coverage.
Correction: An earlier version of this article said the BOE must receive ballots by June 26. It is June 30.
