Nassau judge to rule in disputed Senate race

At the halfway mark between Election Day and the start of a new state legislative session, a Nassau County judge convened a rare weekend court session Saturday to decide whether to certify the results of the contested race for the State Senate's 7th District.

When the last paper ballots were finally counted Friday morning, Republican challenger Jack Martins, the mayor of Mineola, held a 451-vote lead over incumbent Democrat Craig Johnson in a race in which 85,000 ballots were cast. That would be a margin of victory of barely one half of 1 percent of the vote.

If the judge certifies the election, the Republicans will have regained control of the Senate, 32-30 - barring any appeal by the Johnson forces.

In the only other undecided race, incumbent Democrat Suzi Oppenheimer holds a lead of slightly more than 300 votes over Republican opponent Robert Cohen in the 37th Senate District in Westchester County.

However, the outcome of the Nassau race is far from certain. Justice Ira Warshawsky of State Supreme Court in Mineola has given no indication of his leaning, and he has held out the possibility that if he does not certify the election he might order further counting of the ballots that voters fed into the new optical-scan voting machines.

Attorney Steven Schlesinger, representing Johnson, plans to push for a hand count of all 85,000 ballots in an attempt to unearth more votes that may have been missed by the new machines.

The Board of Elections said it would forward its final report on the state-mandated audit on a sample of 32 machines to the judge by Friday, but court closed at 5 p.m. with no report delivered. A preliminary report delivered Thursday had Democrats arguing that the machines had failed the audit, but Republicans said the errors were explainable.

A failed audit could trigger a state requirement that the audit be widened to include more machines. But Warshawsky will be ruling on just the 7th District race and will not necessarily be bound by the audit results.

Meanwhile in Suffolk County, elections officials opened another batch of previously contested paper ballots Friday in the close race between Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Bishop and his Republican challenger, Randy Altschuler.

After the most recent count was completed at midday, Bishop held a 271-vote edge, his spokesman said, while the Altschuler campaign said the Bishop lead was 264. However, more than 1,400 paper ballots remain to be counted.