Seven weeks after south Brooklyn voters took to the polls to elect a new state Senator, a State Supreme Court Judge on Tuesday ruled that 119 disputed ballots will be included in the tally.
Democrat Lewis Fidler and Republican David Storobin have been locked in an extremely tight race and Fidler’s campaign contended in a court challenge that a Strobin campaign worker improperly collected absentee ballots.
But Judge Larry Martin said ““There was no evidence that [the worker] coerced or induced any of the witnesses to falsely apply for an absentee ballot.”
Storobin spokesmam David Simpson said “Everything the Storobin campaign did to encourage voter participation in this election, especially our outreach efforts into the Russian community, was done in accordance with the law and 100 percent above board.”
Attempts to reach Fidler and his campaign manager on Tuesday were not successful as of press time. In a statement published by the Daily News, Fidler said “Over 100 otherwise healthy people spontaneously declared themselves to be disabled in the presence of no one other than David Storobin’s staffer. This is a proven fact. The Storobin campaign knows exactly what it did here and purposefully set out to do it.”
Without the absentee ballots, Fidler had an 87-vote lead over Storobin out of about 22,000 cast. The race in the 27th district is to succeed Sen. Carl Kruger, who has been convicted of corruption charges.
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