Call for clear standard for hand vote count

Ten judges in two appeals all found last month that state Supreme Court Justice Ira Warshawsky acted within his discretion when he nixed a manual ballot count in the 7th Senate District. Jack Martins' 415-vote victory thus stood, and with it, a GOP Senate majority. Some, however, say the law governing New York's new optical-scan voting system invites future chaos. "The standards set for a hand count in this statute are vague and leave discretion to the courts," said former Democratic state Sen. Martin Connor, a leading election lawyer. "The legislature should . . . set a definite standard of what will trigger a hand court, so in the future, boards of election, in appropriate cases, can get right down to counting ballots, avoid delay and put certainty in the results." - Dan Janison