Top judge to issue appeal guidelines in disputed LI races

The state's top judge plans to draw up guidelines and deadlines for filing appeals in a disputed State Senate race in Nassau County and two other races upstate to try to ensure that the Senate begins the year with a functioning majority, officials said Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman had administrative judges in Nassau and upstate counties begin to impress on local election officials the necessity to finish counting paper ballots and resolve problems with auditing the new optical-scan machines, the officials said.

Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo wrote to Lippman Wednesday urging him to "proactively address" some of the pending court actions surrounding the election in three State Senate races: the 7th in Nassau, the 37th in Westchester and the 60th, which includes part of the city of Buffalo in Erie County and extends north into Niagara County to Niagara Falls.

"In my view, a Senate in limbo is not only undesirable, but also unacceptable," Cuomo wrote. He said he feared the Senate might lack a working majority and, "That would complicate, if not render impossible, the conduct of day-to-day-business in the Senate chamber."

A spokesman for Lippman said the judge was aware of the situation and "the issue will be addressed in an extremely timely manner."

The administrative judge for Nassau County, Anthony Marano, confirmed through a spokesman that he met with local Board of Election officials on Tuesday to discuss the 7th District, in which Republican challenger Jack Martins held a 346 lead late Wednesday over Democratic incumbent Craig Johnson. It was Martins with 42,351 to Johnson's 42,005.

State Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), the presumptive Senate leader if the GOP prevails, said he was aware of the judicial concerns. "I believe what Judge Lippman is going to do is set up a schedule so that all the results will be done by Jan. 1," Skelos said.

"I think everyone realizes how significant these three races will be and it has to be done competently, and everyone wants to get out front, making sure they're telling everyone else to get it right," William Biamonte, the Democratic elections commissioner for Nassau County said of the meeting with Marano. John Ryan, counsel to acting Republican elections commissioner Carol Busketta, declined to comment.

Meanwhile in Suffolk, the counting of paper ballots continued Wednesday in the contested race between Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop and Republican challenger Randy Altschuler, who had a lead over Bishop at the end of the day. Officials would not say how much of a lead.

The state-mandated audit of the new optical-scan voting machines continued Wednesday in Suffolk and began in Nassau. No errors were reported in either county. This is the first year the new machines are being used, and the audits are meant to detect any problems.

With James T. Madore

and Sid Cassese