Cabán Supporters Protest Elections Board After Katz Takes Lead

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Tiffany Cabán's supporters protested Friday outside the NYC Board of Elections office in Forest Hills to demand every affidavit ballot be counted in the tight primary race for Queens district attorney.

"People don’t vote because they feel like their vote doesn’t count, and today proves that," said Felicia Singh, Queens borough director for grassroots political group Amplify Her, at the protest, which drew roughly three dozen.

Queens Borough President Melinda Katz is leading Cabán by just 16 votes in the latest vote tally Friday, which includes absentee and affidavit ballots.

Katz claimed victory in the six-person primary Wednesday, a little over a week after Cabán had declared victory with a margin of 1,090 votes, which didn't yet include the absentee and affidavit ballots.

Roughly 2,800 voters cast affidavit ballots in the June 25 Democratic primary, but staffers with the elections board invalidated more than 2,000.

Cabán's legal team plans to argue in court that at least some of those ballots — which are cast when voters encounter an issue at a polling site — should count.

Most of the affidavit ballots were invalidated because the voter was not a registered Democrat, a requirement for voting in the party's primary, or not registered at all, according to THE CITY. Others weren't counted because voters didn't fully fill out their ballot.

"There is a systematic attack to take people's right away from them," Queens resident and Cabán supporter Mary Jobaida said at the rally Friday. "We will accept the outcome once every vote is counted."

The slim margin automatically triggered a recount, which is mandated by the New York City Board of Elections when the victory is by less than 0.5 percent, according to spokeswoman Valerie Vazquez-Diaz.

"Our campaign, and all of Queens, is up against a party machine that has ruled local politics and suppressed democracy for decades," Cabán said in a statement. "We are still fighting to make sure every valid ballot is counted. We are confident that if that happens, we will be victorious."