Photo Courtesy of Assemblywoman Pheffer Amato
Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato
By Michael V. Cusenza
Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato (D-Howard Beach) last week emphatically announced “democracy wins!” after State Supreme Court Judge Joseph Risi ruled in her favor, ordering the City Board of Elections to count 94 absentee ballots and four affidavit ballots the board had mistakenly declared invalid.
“Due to the close margin, the race is already subject to an ongoing mandatory hand recount,” a Pheffer Amato press release noted. Assemblymember Pheffer Amato currently leads by seven votes overall with almost 60 percent of the ballots recounted.”
Not so fast, challenger Tom Sullivan said, and appealed Risi’s decision.
Photo Courtesy of Tom Sullivan
Republican challenger Tom Sullivan
“Stacey Pheffer Amato is engaged in the same hardball legal tactics and smoke screens that have led to both Democrats and Republicans being disgusted with the electoral process,” Sullivan wrote in his own press release issued Monday. “In the appellate case, Pheffer Amato is suing to admit invalid mail-in ballots because she perceives them to work in her favor. In YET ANOTHER separate case to be heard this Thursday, she is suing to readmit additional ballots that were disqualified in the bipartisan hand recount.”
All eyes will be on Queens Supreme Court in Jamaica on Thursday, Dec. 15, for the Court’s decision to determine the validity of the ballots.
City Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Ozone Park) wrote in an op-ed in the Rockaway Point News that she believes that Sullivan will emerge victorious, “and that [Sullivan] will be sworn in as the NYS Assembly Representative for the 23rd District. I have every ounce of faith that our justice system, however flawed it may be, will rectify this misstep by the Queens Supreme Court. If not, I fear we may be descending down a slippery slope of double standards and injustice that we as a nation may never return from.”
