2009 Nassau County Election

[cinyc]

Update

According to the LI Press, Mangano took a 24 vote lead after the 1st day of recounting yesterday, and Newsday was reporting a Mangano lead of 39 as of 11 am.  The areas that have been recounted so far is the 14th LD (though no word on the Mejias/Belesi race) as well as Long Beach, and Suozzi's hometown of Glen Cove.  The 14th LD is generally a Republican area, while Long Beach and Glen Cove are Democratic.  The absentees also lean GOP according to the Long Island Press.

http://www.longislandpress.com/2009/11/10/mangano-leads-suozzi-after-first-day-of-recount/


Obviously, this is good for Suozzi, however keep in mind 2000 Florida's recount (after the Supreme COurt involvement when the media looked at it after the fact)  Gore performed better in the recount in the GOP areas of the state than he did in the Dem core areas of Broward and Palm Beach.  Also while the absentees lean GOP, it doesn't say by how much.  Dems have a little over a 1 point enrollment advantage in the county, but Election Day turnout clearly favored the GOP.  So the question is, is the advantage the GOP have with the absentee ballots stronger or weaker than what they had on Election Day.  The other question is, when were the ballots filled out?  Those that were filled out a few weeks before Election Day likely favors Suozzi, those filled out closer to Election Day will likely have a similar breakout that Election Day had.

How can losing the lead, even when Suozzi's hometown was included in the recount, be good for Suozzi?

[cinyc]

Interesting.

note to 2010 suburban Democrats: promise to lower property taxes

Which puts suburban Democrats at odds with their most important constituency - municipal employee unions.  It's the ultimate wedge issue for local Democrats.

I still don't believe Sam Spade doesn't see a wave here.  Republicans just didn't take control of the Nassau County Legislature and (likely) County Exec.  They won the Westchester County Exec race, control of Dutchess and Ulster county legislatures, Poughkeepsie Common Council, Stamford mayor, and a slew of ultra-local races in suburban NYC.  There's a tax revolt brewing, and it can't bode well for incumbents who depend on the Working Families party - a.k.a. the SEIU.

Any news on the 4pm vote tally?

Is Nassau tallying votes on a state and federal holiday?

[cinyc]

Nassau was tallying votes today, they were expected to finish the recount today around 4 (no word yet on if they did or not, or if anything has changed from this morning.  The counts of the absentee ballots, as well as paper ballots are expected next week.

As far as any trend, one thing to keep in mind (though I can speak more for here in Nassau than Westchester or Dutchess) is that turnout was very low.  Turnout was off somewhere along the lines of 17% or so from 2005, and the biggest drops were in the Democratic leaning areas.

Low turnout among Democrats is part of that trend (and fairly uniform throughout the suburbs, IIRC).  The party's incumbent candidates weren't exciting Democrats enough to turn them out.   Republicans were more motivated.  If that trend continues, 2010 will look like a bloodbath.  Republicans could retake control of the State Senate and have a remote possibility of upsetting Gillibrand.

[cinyc]

Any recount updates ?

The local NYC TV news said Mangano's lead is about 500 votes - which is pretty much what we heard yesterday.  The claimed reason for the discrepancy was errors in adding a minor party line's tally to Mangano's overall count in some precincts (just like what appears to have happened in NY-23, fwiw, except there Scozzafava (R) seems to have been misallocated votes cast for Hoffman (C)). 

Did Nassau use the old lever machines this election or some newfangled machinery?

[cinyc]

Is anyone glad Susie is losing?

Silly question.  

Yeah, Republicans like me who'd love to see the NY Democratic Party's next great hope go down in flames.  

If Suozzi loses, Republicans will control the County Execs in Nassau, Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and Orange Counties, and endorsed the mayor of NYC.  A Republican would head the executive branch of every New York county/NYC government in the Greater NYC area save Suffolk County.  (No, borough president figureheads don't count).  Quite a feat for a party that's been left for dead in the Northeast.  That the loss was unexpected is icing on the cake.

Do you really expect that everyone on this website idolizes Democrats?

[cinyc]

According to Newsday, Mangano's lead has inched up to 554.  536 of the more than 8,000 absentee and affidavit ballots were opened and counted today.  An unknown number were objected to.

Mangano's lead is up from what Newsday claims was the final machine count from last week, 459.  If that's correct, Mangano won today's absentees by 95 votes, something like 315-220, or 59%-41%.

We don't know from which precincts the votes came or the partisan breakdown of the ballots objected to, but this doesn't look good for Suozzi. 

Newsday also reported that there are a total of 7,165 absentee ballots and 927 affidavit ballots.  It's unclear whether any of the affidavit ballots were counted today.

[cinyc]

Newsday is reporting Mangano's lead is down to 553 after Wednesday's count - a net drop of 1 whole vote from their last report.

[cinyc]

Mangano's lead is down to 122 votes:

http://www.longislandpress.com/2009/11/24/mangano-suozzi-race-update/

I'm amazed at the slowness with which they're counting these ballots. It's been three damn weeks!

Since the election, yes.  But  they didn't start opening absentees and other paper ballots until the following week.  They're through about 2/3rds of them, with 10% or so set aside for judicial challenges.

According to the linked article, the most recent votes came from a Democrat stronghold Assembly District that includes Suozzi's hometown.  The next batch to be counted this week are from a Republican-friendly South Shore Legislative District 6, and the final batch to be counted next week are from towns and villages near the Queens line.

Edited to add: Newsday is reporting Mangano's lead is up to 160 after finishing counting ADs 13 and 14.  About 830 absentees and other paper ballots in ADs 10 and 21 are left to count, according to Newsday, and about 500 have been set aside for judicial review.
 

[cinyc]

According to Newsday, Mangano is up by 213, with only 623 paper ballots left to count - all from AD 21 (Floral Park/Bellerose/Elmont/Franklin Square/Melverne).  Those will be counted on Monday.  After that, which of the remaining 500-600 disputed ballots are to be opened will be decided on in court.

[cinyc]

This is truly an interesting election, only adding to the fact of its unexpected closeness.  It appears it will come down to resolution based upon how the 500 ballots set aside for Judicial review.  I wonder if they count on Friday?

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

No.  Monday, from what I understand.

[cinyc]

Suozzi has conceded. 
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/suozzi-concedes-county-executive-race-1.1631322

Mangano +377 going into the contested votes.  My guess is most of them were objected to by Suozzi.

[cinyc]

Official Results from the Nassau County Board of Elections website, broken down by party line:
EDWARD P MANGANO                              122,490
 EDWARD P MANGANO                         R   116,731
 EDWARD P MANGANO                         X     5,759 

THOMAS R SUOZZI                                  122,104
 THOMAS R SUOZZI                          D   111,501
 THOMAS R SUOZZI                          I     6,972
 THOMAS R SUOZZI                          W     3,631   

STEVEN HANSEN                            C               9,751

Result: Mangano +386. 

If media reports are correct, the questioned ballots that were initially set aside for judicial review slightly favored Mangano+9.  Assuming there was no recanvassing reported with the absentees, the overall absentee and affidavit ballots favored Suozzi by 79 - which is just a little under a 1% gap in the 8,092 ballots counted (i.e. approximately 50.5%-49.5% Suozzi)