Judge Starts Review Of Disputed Ballots In Queens DA Primary

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Ten lawyers huddled around a table, flanked by American flags, as Judge John G. Ingram started his review of roughly 100 disputed ballots cast in the Democratic primary for Queens district attorney.

Ingram looked over the first ballot. The voter appeared to have cast a vote for public defender Tiffany Cabán, but there was also a squiggle by City Council Member Rory Lancman's name.

It was enough of an "identifying mark" to render the ballot an overvote, the Board of Elections had found, meaning the voter had chosen more than one candidate and the ballot did not count.

The judge agreed. Staffers from the elections board pulled the next manila folder marked "OBJECTED BALLOT" from a gray bin.

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So went the painstaking review of a set of ballots challenged by Cabán or Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, who secured a 60-vote lead after a manual recount of 91,000 votes cast in the primary.

On the eleventh floor of the hulking Queens Boulevard building that houses the borough's elections office, titans of New York election law argued over whether stray squiggles on a ballot were intentional or a slip of the pen, whether these rogue marks were enough to differentiate one voter's ballot from another and would render the vote void.

The judge on Tuesday agreed to review 70 ballot challenges from Cabán's campaign and 29 from Katz's campaign.

They include those ballots with stray marks, plus ballots missing party information on the form an affidavit voter must fill out on the ballot's envelope.

At the heart of the challenges are the minutiae of state election law, such as a provision that says a ballot marked or signed "in such a way that it can be identified from other ballots" must not be counted.

Lawyers representing the Cabán and Katz campaigns argued over everything from the intent behind sets of squiggles to whether a stain came from a highlighter or mustard.

Ingram, a Brooklyn judge brought in to preside over the ballot challenges, hasn't said whether he will review at least 70 additional ballots challenged by the Cabán campaign, none of which was part of Tuesday's proceedings.