Daniel O'Donnell Defends UWS State Assembly Seat

NEW YORK, NY — Residents of State Assembly District 69 took to the polls Tuesday to vote for their representatives in the state legislature during this year's midterm election.

Democrat Daniel O'Donnell cruised to victory against Republican challenger Corina Cotenescu in a less-than-surprising result. O'Donnell captured 92 percent of the vote compared to Cotenescu's 7 percent, according to unofficial election night results from the New York City Board of Elections.

The 69th Assembly District spans the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights neighborhoods. O'Donnell has represented the area since 2003.

City dwellers packed public schools, apartment lobbies and places of worship to form massive lines as they cast ballots in Tuesday's midterm elections. Reports from many polling sites indicated an unusually high turnout for a non-presidential election.

Lines in some places stretched around the buildings where voting booths were set up, even in neighborhoods with no contested elections. Voters waiting outside PS 163 on the Upper West Side lined a full block between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues, a video posted to Twitter shows.

Despite the high turnout, the scene at many poll sites was bleak due to horrible weather and a general sense of dysfunction in how the election was managed. New Yorkers encountered widespread problems with the machines used to record their votes in Tuesday's midterm elections, adding to long waits caused by unusually high turnout. City officials blamed wet ballots on a rainy Election Day for jamming up scanning machines at dozens of poll sites in at least four boroughs.

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