Lew Fidler (Photo: Facebook)

Democratic State Senate candidate Lew Fidler is locked in a tight process of counting the final absentee and provisional votes from a March 20th special election, and over Facebook, he outlined both his specific path to victory and held out hope that the gerrymandered State Senate lines will still be thrown back to the drawing board. Currently, Mr. Fidler's Republican opponent, David Storobin, leads by 3 votes.

First, Mr. Fidler articulated why he thinks he'll ultimately be up in the count when the court opens all of the ballots not alleged to be fraudulent, a process that will begin with another hearing tomorrow.

"The Court Referees have recommended opening most of the ballots that the Storobin campaign challenged, about 130/140 or so, but only 35 of the ballots that our attorneys challenged," he wrote last week. "We believe that when they are opened, we will move ahead in the count significantly---dare I say it, nay even think it, by double digits or more."

A Brooklyn Daily report also agreed with Mr. Fidler's analysis here, however, the result may actually depend on how many of his own votes Mr. Storobin challenged as there are many ideologically conservative registered Democrats in southeastern Brooklyn.

Regardless, Mr. Fidler's campaign will then head to trial to try and prove over a hundred absentee ballots, collected by one of Mr. Storobin campaign staffers, are fraudulent. This could prove decisive in determining the overall winner as almost all of these votes would be certain to go to Mr. Storobin.

Even if Mr. Fidler wins this election, he faces a dilemma in running for reelection. The Senate Republicans, anticipating his possible victory, drew his neighborhood into a faraway district while effectively dismantling the senate district he is currently seeking to represent.

However, given last week's proceedings of the Senate Democrats' lawsuit alleging the new redistricting plan unconstitutionally increased the size of the State Senate, Mr. Fidler sees optimism there as well.

"I am told that this past Friday, buried in the hubbub of a holiday weekend that I hope everyone else enjoyed as much as I did, a State Supreme Court Justice in Manhattan reserved decision on plaintiff's argument that the 63rd Senate district created by the Senate Republicans is unconstitutional," he wrote yesterday. "In the event that the Court rules that it is, the current Senate lines would have to be tossed and one less district drawn statewide. Which means---hold on here Ed Koch---we might very well get a truly independent redistricting for the State Senate this year! Teach THOSE guys to renege on a written promise made to the people of New York!"

If the court sides with the Democrats, then it would appear likely that a new 62-seat plan would need to be quickly drawn (if it's not already) and passed, or risk having the court decide a special master is needed to intervene and draw its own state legislative lines. Funnily enough, should he win, a court intervention here could hypothetically work to Mr. Storobin's benefit as well, as his base in the Russian speaking community was thrown into a heavily Democratic Staten Island-based district under the current redistricting plan.

Needless to say, there are a lot of unknowns and the entire process is fairly likely to go to an automatic hand recount. Or, as Mr. Fidler put it, "I don't know if I am in Mooseport, Florida or Oz!"

Lew Fidler and David Storobin

More ballots were opened for the March 20th State Senate special election this afternoon, and Republican candidate David Storobin doubled his margin ... to two votes, multiple tipsters told The Politicker.

The latest gain comes from absentee and provisional ballots where the respective campaigns withdrew their objections. 41 ballots were counted in total, with 21 going to Mr. Storobin and 20 going to his Democratic opponent, Lew Fidler.

However, the bulk of the contested absentee and provisional ballots still needs to be tallied.

A judge is expected to begin the process of reviewing the Special Referees' recommendations tomorrow, although that may not involve actual votes being counted. Much could additionally hinge on a lawsuit Mr. Fidler has filed against more than a hundred votes gathered by a Storobin campaign staffer.

Lew Fidler and David Storobin

At the end of last week, lawyers representing the two candidates in the special election to replace Carl Kruger in the State Senate agreed to a court proceeding to resolve which candidate ultimately received more votes. Republican candidate David Storobin is currently leading by a single vote, but Democrat Lew Fidler is feeling confident.

The judge has appointed two "Special Referees" to hear ballot objections made by both sides on the contested absentee votes (i.e. one campaign may believe signature similarity on certain ballots indicates the votes were fraudulent).

On April 4th, the judge will review the Special Referees' findings.

This could either close the book on the election by officially placing one of the candidates above the 110 vote threshold needed to avoid a full hand recount, or set the stage for such a recount where campaigns and the courts review all 20,000 ballots cast in this election.

View the campaigns' legal agreement below:

Correction: The original post incorrectly said the process would begin April 4th instead of being reviewed on that date.

Both campaigns declared victory last week, but who will win?

The latest turn in the special election to replace Carl Kruger in the State Senate has given the Republican candidate, David Storobin, a gigantic lead of one vote over his Democratic opponent Lew Fidler, multiple tipsters told The Politicker.

Contrary to what both of the campaigns had reported, the final result last night was actually a tie, a symbolic number in what has been a grueling race.

And, with all of the invalid absentee and provisional ballots finished being reviewed and contested today, Mr. Storobin's lead has hopped up to that single point.

These tiny shifts in the margin are relatively inconsequential, however, due to the hundreds of contested absentee and provisional ballots that were simply set aside when one of the two campaigns objected to them. These votes will now remain uncounted for three days to allow time for a court order should one of the campaigns seek legal action, so Mr. Storobin's tiny lead could hold through the weekend.

If there's no court order, the contested ballots will then be tallied up at the Board of Elections. And then, if the margin either of the candidates is leading by is less than 0.5%of the 20,000 total votes cast (around 110 in this election), there will be an automatic hand recount of every ballot.

Both campaigns declared victory last week as well. (Photo: Facebook)

With Democrat Lew Fidler taking a three-vote lead yesterday (or possibly no lead at all) after the uncontested absentee and provisional ballots were counted in the special election to replace corrupt former State Senator Carl Kruger, things appear very tight indeed.

Both campaigns sent out statements, which you can view below, and both are expressing confidence while accusing the other of ethnic discrimination in their ballot challenges.

 Notably, according to Republican candidate David Storobin's campaign, they contested 193 ballots and Mr. Fidler's team challenged 185. These 378 ballots were all initially considered valid, so absent legal action to prove fraud, the majority of them could easily be added back into the respective candidate's totals.

The next step in the process for the campaigns is to contest ballots that were initially considered invalid by the Board of Elections. If neither candidate has a lead of about 110 votes when this is over, which seems reasonably likely, it's on to an automatic hand recount and legal action.

View the two statements below.

Mr. Fidler campaign's manager Kalman Yeger:

“This is exactly as we predicted on Election Night: Lew Fidler received more votes than his opponent.

During the course of the day, the Storobin legal team, obviously realizing that more voters had chosen Lew Fidler, began registering challenges to voters who were registered Democrats, senior citizens, and had Jewish surnames. Over three-quarters of Mr. Storobin’s challenges were directed against women.

Even allowing for the extraordinary number of Storobin challenges made with no legal basis, Lew Fidler is ahead in the count, and we are confident when the court concludes its review of the contested ballots, Lew Fidler will have more votes and win this election."

And, on the other side, from Mr. Storobin himself:

"This is obviously a very close election, and it is by no means over. At the completion of the recanvass, if Mr. Fidler's narrow lead holds, we will move forward with a court action. I believe that every valid vote must be counted in order to declare a true winner and reassure the people of 27th District that the democratic process has been carried out correctly.

Unfortunately, my opponent's campaign has unfairly blocked well more than 100 Russian absentee votes from being counted, for no reason other than the fact that they are Russian. This blatant disenfranchisement cannot and will not stand.

We had a solid lead until my opponent unfairly blocked ethnic votes, and I believe that once every valid vote has been counted we will win this election. I have faith that the legal process will work as it should to ensure that the votes that should be counted will be counted, and that in the end I will be the next State Senator from Brooklyn."

Councilman Fidler (Photo: Facebook)

Things are getting tense at the Board of Elections office in Brooklyn today where the count of absentee and provisional ballots from last week's State Senate special election continues to progress, and the Democratic candidate, Lew Fidler, has narrowed his deficit to only 10 votes and is reasonably likely to be leading at the end of the day.

However, the campaigns of both Mr. Fidler and the Republican candidate, David Storobin, are contesting ballots initially ruled valid, causing those votes to be temporarily set aside until all of the uncontested votes have finished being counted.

A reader following the proceedings told The Politicker that lawyers for the Republican candidate, David Storobin, are currently contesting an unusually large swath of Democratic ballots in one of the electoral districts being tabulated. If true, this could have the effect of temporarily inflating Mr. Storobins' tally since votes more favorable to him would be among the uncontested ballots.

However, Mr. Storobin's campaign firmly believes Mr. Fidler's  team is attempting to accomplish the same effect with their own set of objections.

They claim a batch of votes contested by Mr. Fidler's campaign was selected purely because they were cast by voters with Russian names (Mr. Storobin himself is an immigrant from Russia and performed well in Russian neighborhoods). Indeed, Mr. Storobin's campaign is holding a rally in front of Mr. Fidler's campaign headquarters later this afternoon to protest this "tactic of ethnic exclusion."

The exact circumstances are unclear, but an article in The New York Times yesterday illuminates the situation slightly, reporting, "Lawyers for Mr. Fidler’s campaign said they had identified 177 people who had filled out applications for absentee ballots claiming permanent disability, ballots that were collected by the same woman."

In New York State, unlike some other places in the country, absentee ballots are not valid unless the voter is physically unable to vote, such as being disabled or being outside of the county in question on Election Day. Thus, one cannot simply vote absentee by choice, which is what Mr. Fidler's campaign likely believes happened with that particular batch of ballots. However, it's not immediately clear how easy it is to prove to the Board of Elections a particular voter was capable of voting in person -- but elected not to -- and this whole process may very well end up in court.

Needless to say, how those 177 ballots are ultimately counted could have a drastic impact on which candidate wins.

"But even if we end up going down in the tally at the end of today, keep in mind we have that huge pocket of more than 100 Russian absentees that will go Storobin once they're counted in court," David Simpson, a spokesman for Mr. Storobin told The Politicker in an email. "We looked at them and believe they're valid and will hold up."

A photo of challenged ballots provided by Mr. Storobin's campaign

As absentee ballots were being counted today for last week's State Senate special election, both campaigns had the opportunity to challenge ballots initially ruled valid, causing those votes to be set aside for later evaluation in a fairly normal procedural process. However, in a statement blasted out this evening, the campaign of the Republican candidate, David Storobin, charged that operatives working for the Democratic candidate, Lew Fidler, were systemically gaming the count by targeting ballots with Russian names on them (Mr. Storobin is himself a Russian immigrant).

Although the total number of challenges from both side are not immediately available, it is generally true that if one campaign challenges many more ballots than the other, it creates an appearance of a larger lead than reality, which sets in when many or most of those contested ballots are confirmed to be valid and returned to the count after the uncontested votes have finished being tallied.

It's not necessarily an uncommon practice to challenge ballots seen to likely favor the opposing candidate during these types of proceedings. Even the most remote chance of having a vote for one's rival ruled invalid works to a campaign's advantage when the final margin could be just a handful of votes.

(It's also theoretically possible that the Russian-speaking community, for whatever reason, simply contained more voters whose ballots were not 100% perfect.)

However, Mr. Storobin's campaign argued that any sort of targeting against Russian voters was morally wrong and went beyond reasonableness during today's process.

"As the afternoon has progressed, a troubling pattern has emerged in the Fidler campaign's objections to absentee ballots. It has become clear that they have shifted to a tactic of ethnic exclusion, objecting to almost all of the absentee ballots from the Russian election districts and with Russian last name," Mr. Storobin's campaign spokesman, David Simpson, charged. "Dozens and dozens of Russian votes are not being counted today because of the Fidler campaign's objections to these votes."

"David Storobin strongly condemns any effort to exclude any part of the community based on ethnic bias. He is calling for every vote to be counted by the same standard so that a winner can be declared and the people od the 27th District will finally have representation in the State Senate," he concluded.

The Board of Elections only counted about half the total number of absentee and provisional ballots today, so much will still shift around before all is said is done.

Update: Mr. Fidler's campaign manager Kalman Yeger told Yossi Gestetner why their campaign challenged Mr. Storobin's votes:

"It has become clear that the Storobin team has run an illegal mail-in campaign which is not permitted in New York. We do not know the ethnicity of any voter but we do know that people who voted twice should have only one vote counted. Worse, the Board of Election discovered that many people who claimed on the absentee ballots to be permanently invalids somehow showed up to vote in person too on Election Day…"

David Storobin (Photo: Facebook)

As the first day of counting absentee votes in last week's special election to replace corrupt former State Senator Carl Kruger came to a close this evening, Republican candidate David Storobin led Democratic Lew Fidler by just 37 votes, a source familiar with the situation told The Politicker.

When the process convened for a lunch break earlier this afternoon, Mr. Storobin's lead had dropped from his Election Day total of 119 to 62.

Only 296 votes have been counted, about half of the 757 valid absentee votes when one takes into account that some valid votes were contested and placed aside for the moment. Additionally, hundreds more ballots initially ruled to be invalid are out there for both campaigns to contest, some of which are likely to be brought back into play.

The counting, which is organized by Assembly Districts overlapping with the State Senate seat in question, swung back and forth as it reaches turf favorable to each of the candidates, but has systemically favored Mr. Fidler thus far.

Bastions of support for both candidates remain to be counted, notably a heavily Orthodox Jewish Assembly District favorable to Mr. Storobin and an Assembly District directly overlapping with Mr. Fidler's current City Council district.

Regardless, the tallying looks like it's currently on track to be under the 110 vote margin threshold necessary to trigger an automatic hand recount of all of the ballots in this extremely close election.