Election result still not reached, Espaillat appeals to court

The still-undecided Congressional race between state Sen. Adriano Espaillat and Rep. Charles Rangel will end up in New York State Supreme Court on Monday.

Though Mr. Rangel declared victory last Tuesday night, complications have prevented an official tally for Congressional District 13, which includes portions of the Northwest Bronx and Upper Manhattan.

As of Friday at 6 p.m., 94 percent of precincts had reported and Mr. Rangel’s lead had shrunk to 2.6 percent, or 1,032 votes. In the Bronx, Mr. Rangel led Mr. Espaillat by six votes.

However, that number is unreliable since unofficial results released by the BOE Wednesday morning showed that 66 election districts where ballots were cast recorded no votes, including 23 in the Bronx and 43 in Manhattan.

BOE spokeswoman Valerie Vazquez said the zeroes were erroneous.

Mr. Espaillat said many of the Manhattan election districts that recorded no votes were in Washington Heights, an area widely expected to be a stronghold for the Dominican-American candidate. The Bronx was also expected to be an area with a solid number of Mr. Espaillat voters.

Among the election districts that recorded no votes were four in Kingsbridge Heights near West Kingsbridge Road, an area with a high concentration of Dominican voters, located in Assembly District 78.

Bordering this cluster of uncounted election districts is Election District 53, which reported 51 votes for Mr. Espaillat compared to eight for Mr. Rangel and four for other candidates.

In Assembly District 72, which covers parts of Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill, there were 4,743 votes recorded for Mr. Espaillat and 840 for Mr. Rangel; a third of the election districts have yet to be counted.

On Friday afternoon, Ms. Vazquez said poll workers were going through and scanning every vote in the election to make an official count, which is nothing unusual.

But Mr. Espaillat claims his campaign staffers have been blocked from watching the BOE tally the votes. Mr. Espaillat appealed to the court and was “granted a hearing to examine the vote counting process,” according to his campaign.

“Our campaign has not been allowed to adequately monitor the Board of Elections’ proceedings, as required by law. The BOE continues to stonewall not only our campaign, but also the news media, which is particularly disturbing given that it blocks the free flow of information and transparency — the bedrock of our democratic system,” read the statement from Mr. Espaillat’s campaign.

According to Ms. Vazquez, Mr. Espaillat’s campaign filed an order to show cause, which she said the BOE will seek to have vacated on Monday.

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