We have a winner

From Politicker:

Donovan Richards declared victory today in the Queens special election to replace his mentor, former Councilman James Sanders, putting to rest fears that the election’s outcome would be unknown for weeks or even months in what had become a racially-charged contest.

With all absentee and affidavit votes counted, Mr. Richards padded his razor-thin 26-vote Election Day margin with another 133 additional votes, while his main competitor, Pesach Osina, only gathered an additional 80. This brought the unofficial tally to 2,646 for Mr. Richards and 2,567 for Mr. Osina, a wide enough margin to avoid an automatic recount. The results will be certified next week.

And the winner is?????

From the Times Ledger:

Despite the fact that two City Council candidates had each claimed victory in southeast Queens’ special election, by the next night the city Board of Elections had yet to count the votes on a missing memory stick, and it may be weeks before an official winner is declared.

By Wednesday night Donovan Richards had a 26-vote lead over Pesach Osina, according to the board’s preliminary results, with paper and absentee ballots yet to be counted, as well as the votes on a missing, mystery memory stick used in electronic voting machines.

Both Richards and Osina had already declared themselves the winner by the early hours Wednesday morning and did not lay off throughout the day. Richards said the missing votes would come in from outside Osina’s Orthodox Jewish community and tweeted that his closest opponent “ran a hell of a campaign.”

Osina released a statement saying he expected to be the winner when the votes were counted.

“I’m confident that when all the votes are final, we will be victorious!” he said.

According to election law, however, the board will not begin counting affidavits and absentee ballots until Wednesday, and with such a scant margin separating the top two candidates, next week’s results could trigger an automatic recount.

A spokeswoman at the BOE said that if the margin of victory is less than 0.5 percent, a manual recount is automatically triggered, a process that could take weeks.

Richards was leading Osina by 0.3 percent.

Crowded field for Sanders' seat

Selvena Brooks

From the Daily News:

The District 31 run-off race to fill former City Councilman James Sanders Jr.’s vacated seat is loaded with candidates that have wacky or barely distinguishable party names and connections to current elected officials.

The city Board of Elections announced Wednesday that nine candidates met the Jan. 15 deadline to submit at least 1,350 signatures to have their name on the ballot for the Feb. 19 special election.

With no political primary, the candidates were tasked with inventing their own party and adopted cause.

Selvena Brooks, a former staffer of state Sen. Malcolm Smith, and former Councilman Allan Jennings both alluded to Superstorm Sandy with their party name choices, running under the “Rebuild Now” and “People’s Relief” lines, respectively.

Three of nine party monikers include some form of the word unite, including current Community Board 8 District Manager Marie Adam-Ovide running with the People United ticket.

Community activists Jacques Leandre, Saywalah Kesselly and Earnest Flowers add to an already crowded field. Flowers is a community liaison for Assemblyman William Scarborough, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The early frontrunner appears to be Donovan Richards, Sanders’ former chief of staff. The outgoing councilman has thrown his weight behind his protegé. Richards is running under the Community Unity line.

The overflowing field of candidates is predominantly African American, except for Pesach Osina, a liaison for Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder. One source within Osina’s camp said that his path to victory runs through the prominent Orthodox Jewish enclave in Far Rockaway.