Losquadro jumps to balloting lead over Alessi

In a second East End race - considered a jump ball on election night - Republican challenger Dan Losquadro has taken a sizable lead over Democratic Assemb. Marc Alessi after a recanvassing of new electronic voting machines.

Party officials were told Friday that Losquadro, the Suffolk Legislature's minority leader, had an 890-vote edge - up from 40 on election night.

The swing in the First Assembly District is similar to the huge shift that turned U.S. Rep. Tim Bishop's 3,461-vote election night lead into a nearly 400-vote deficit in the race against GOP challenger Randy Altschuler.

"I'm cautiously optimistic," Losquadro said Saturday. "I think it's a very solid number." He said he expected the lead to grow because more Republicans than Democrats sought absentee ballots, but added if it doesn't, the margin is already too great for Alessi to overcome. Alessi did not return calls for comment. But Richard Schaffer, Suffolk Democratic chairman, said: "Everyone should question the technology at this point."

Schaffer urged that no candidates concede and said party lawyers will go to court to seek a hand count of every single ballot in both races. "The only good part of the new voting system is that it has a verifiable paper trail . . . No one wants a winner declared with a cloud hanging over their head," he said.

Meanwhile, Bishop Saturday sent backers an e-mail seeking $25,000 by Monday for the recount battle. He asked those who witnessed voting problems to contact the campaign and sought recount volunteers.

Also, Rob Ryan, Altschuler's spokesman, said their campaign is "working closely" with the National Republican Congressional Committee to "ensure they have resources" for the recount.

Experts have speculated the swings in Suffolk could come from poll inspectors misreading machine numbers - or perhaps mistakes by election board operators or computer technicians who took in the data at Yaphank from more than 1,000 election districts. However, such errors usually even out, they say.

In Nassau, election night results came directly from each machine's memory card, transported to the county elections board in Mineola. Suffolk, which is larger, relied on a call-in system. In Suffolk's recanvass, the memory card data was input several days later.

Suffolk election officials Saturday declined to comment on the ballot swings because of pending litigation. Machine results for other Suffolk races are also being recanvassed, but officials say the two closest races were given priority.

Election officials in both counties will Monday begin the first test of the machines' Nov. 2 performance by running a 3 percent random audit and comparing hand-counted paper ballots.

If the tallies do not agree, the audit will be expanded. If they do, officials will check machine memory cards against unofficial vote totals. Absentee ballots will be reviewed only after that's done, including military ballots, which have a Nov. 24 deadline.

Democratic and GOP state officials say they know of no other contests statewide with such large swings, but Jay Jacobs, the Nassau and state Democratic chairman, said election boards elsewhere may be moving at a different pace than Suffolk.

He said the machines may become an issue in Nassau's tight State Senate race, where GOP Mineola Mayor Jack Martins has a slim lead over Democratic Sen. Craig Johnson.

"There is a great question on the accuracy of the machines," Jacobs said, noting Nassau election commissioners have filed a lawsuit challenging the machines as unreliable.

But Tony Santino, Nassau GOP spokesman, said, "We believe the count is correct and the numbers will hold up because there was no human element in the reporting of the results."