#NYC Rep. Carolyn Maloney pulling ahead of rival Suraj Patel in mail-ballot vote

Veteran Rep. Carolyn Maloney is “pulling away” from Democratic rival Suraj Patel and smelling victory as mail-in votes were counted Thursday night to determine their nail-biting primary, a campaign spokesman said.

“It’s all over but the celebration,” said Maloney spokesman George Artz.

Maloney, 74, first elected in 1992 and chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, held a slim 648-vote lead over Patel in the June 23 machine count for the 12th Congressional District encompassing Manhattan’s East Side, the western Queens neighborhoods of Long Island City and parts of Astoria and Woodside and the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn.

But Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order making it easier for New York primary voters to vote via absentee ballot to reduce exposure at polling sites during the coronavirus pandemic.

In the 12th CD, as it turns out, more than 65,000 absentee ballots are being counted — far exceeding the in-person voting. About two-thirds of the mail-in-ballots — 47,794 — were sent by Manhattan’s East Side voters.

Maloney comfortably won the larger Manhattan portion of the district while Patel easily carried Brooklyn and Manhattan. But she only led with 40.3 percent of the machine vote to Patel’s 38.75 percent, with the rest of the votes divided among two other candidates, Lauren Ashcraft and Peter Harrison.

Patel initially picked up 2,651 votes from mail-in ballots already counted in Brooklyn and Queens, giving him a 2,003 vote lead, according to the Maloney camp.

But the tide turned when the larger counting of absentee ballots shifted to Maloney’s Manhattan turf.

Artz said Maloney had built a 1,100 vote lead over Patel as of 8 p.m Thursday night as she collected the lion’s share of votes, particularly in the 73rd and 76th Assembly Districts on the Upper East Side.

He said the congresswoman’s lead would only grow with thousands of additional votes on Manhattan’s East Side yet to be counted.

The race is a rematch between the two. Maloney defeated Patel, 36, a lawyer who worked for former President Barack Obama, during the spirited 2018 primary.

Patel did not dispute that Maloney was ahead. He confirmed that his own campaign calculated Maloney was up by 600 votes.

But Patel said it’s not over until all the ballots are counted, including those he believed were illegally tossed out by election officials

Patel last week sued Cuomo and the state Board of Elections in federal court for creating an “election snafu” that has disenfranchised thousands of voters who mailed absentee ballots.

The governor’s executive order required election boards statewide to send voters a postage-paid absentee ballot envelope — but such mail is not typically post-marked by the post office.

Many of the mail-in ballots that were not postmarked by June 23rd were declared invalid by the city elections board.

“I guess they don’t care about the 12,500 votes that were invalidated,” Patal said Thursday night.

Patel also filed suit in Manhattan state Supreme Court to urge a judge to supervise the final tally in the race.

He also said there were still about 15,000 votes to be counted.