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Vote Counting Continuing in Close Race in East Harlem

By Jonathan P. Hicks

The New York Times, September 16, 2005

One City Council contest in Tuesday's primary remains unresolved: the race in the Eighth District, anchored in East Harlem. And yesterday the campaigns of Felipe Luciano and Melissa Mark-Viverito, the two leading candidates, were busy overseeing the post-election counting process.

The initial unofficial count on Tuesday night had Ms. Mark-Viverito, a researcher for 1199/S.E.I.U., the large health care union, with a 16-vote lead over Mr. Luciano, a longtime radio personality and a television reporter. It was a six-candidate race, and both Ms. Mark-Viverito and Mr. Luciano had 25 percent of the vote.

"I won the count on election night, and I think that the results will remain the same once everything is counted," Ms. Mark-Viverito said. "I don't think that anything will change, and I will be the council member."

Not surprisingly, the Luciano campaign is taking a different view. "Clearly, this is far from being over," said Jerry Goldfeder, a lawyer for Mr. Luciano's campaign. "The margin is very, very tiny, and anything can happen."

The Eighth Council District includes East Harlem and parts of the Upper West Side and the South Bronx.

Mr. Goldfeder said that the Board of Elections began reviewing various paper ballots yesterday and that Mr. Luciano was down by seven votes at lunchtime. "In the next day, we'll look at all the voting machines again and that will produce another picture of the outcome."

Christopher Riley, a spokesman for the Board of Elections, said that any absentee ballots that come in by the end of business next Tuesday will also be counted.

"We should have the final figures about the outcome of the election sometime next week," Mr. Riley said.

The race in the Eighth District is to select a successor to Councilman Philip Reed, who was barred by term limits from running for re-election. It was a hotly competitive race in which each of the candidates had run for office before.

Both Mr. Luciano and Ms. Mark-Viverito benefited from well-honed campaign organizations from recent elections.

Ms. Mark-Viverito, who ran for the Council against Mr. Reed two years ago (she came in third in that six-way primary), had strong union support. She had a network of volunteers from not only 1199 but also Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union.

Mr. Luciano came to this year's campaign with a vast volunteer network and workers from several unions. He is well aware of how election results can change. In 2001, when he ran against Mr. Reed, the initial figures showed him trailing by about 200 votes. But after the paper ballots were counted and the voting machines were rechecked, Mr. Reed's lead grew to 1,043 votes.