Judge Approves Machine Recount In Close Bergen County Assembly Primary

By Nikita Biryukov, New Jersey Monitor

July 17, 2025

A Superior Court judge partially approved a recount request filed by an Assembly candidate in Bergen County who finished less than half a point behind his closest opponent, but the candidate’s request to inspect ballots was denied.

Demarest Councilman David Jiang, a Democrat, finished third in a four-person race last month for two spots on the November ballot in the 39th Legislative District, which covers a northern swath of Bergen County. Jiang ran 137 votes behind former Woodcliff Lake Councilwoman Donna Abene.

Judge Kelly Conlon approved Jiang’s request to rerun machine vote totals but denied his push to hand review all ballots, meaning the review will be limited to in-person machine votes cast on or before election day. Mail ballots will be processed through tallying machines but won’t be subject to a hand review, said Michael Ash, who represented Jiang.

“This recount … is vital in order to ensure that the voters of District 39 have properly had their votes counted, their votes exercised, and making sure that the right individual was elected to the seat,” Ash said during arguments Tuesday.

He told the New Jersey Monitor the decision marked “a good day for the checks on Democratic processes.”

Jiang ran on a two-person slate of Assembly hopefuls backed by Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, who lost his bid for the Democratic nod for governor on June 10. Jiang’s running mate, former Dumont Mayor Andrew LaBruno, finished in first place. Their two opponents ran with the backing of Bergen County’s Democratic Party.

Statewide, nine Assembly candidates backed by Fulop won their contests last month and will be on the ballot in November, though only one — LaBruno — won in a district where two party-backed candidates were also seeking the nod.

The 39th District is currently represented by two Republicans in the Assembly.

Jiang in court filings argued differences between the sum of district vote totals and contest-wide tallies justified a recount, even if that difference was far too small to change the race’s outcome. Contest totals showed Jiang with one more vote than the sum of district totals (Abene’s count was eight votes higher).

He also questioned whether the thousands of undervotes suggest errors in the vote-counting process. Undervotes happen when a voter leaves some portions of their ballot blank, such as by voting for only one candidate in a race for two seats or by voting for no candidates at all for a given office.

Deputy Attorney General Charles Shadle, who represented the Bergen County Board of Elections, said there were processes to ensure machine ballots were properly scanned and tabulated, even in the case of over- and undervotes.

He added that New Jersey law, which contains no automatic recount provision, does not entitle candidates to a recount unless they show an error was made and the error was large enough to shift election results. Jiang had not done so, Shadle argued.

The Bergen County Clerk’s Office did not oppose the recount request.

“We have found the elections in Bergen County have been fair, and we have no issue with transparency,” said Paul Kaufman, an attorney for the clerk.

Shadle said he expects the review to take two or three days to complete and could be started within the next week.

New Jersey Monitor, the Garden State’s newest news site, provides fair and tough reporting on the issues affecting New Jersey, from political corruption to education to criminal and social justice. The Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by grants and a coalition of donors and readers.