CD3 primary numbers don't add up, one campaign says

Daily Point

Candidate questions Nassau primary result in CD3

Is a Nassau County MAGA candidate going Trumpian about election results?

Saying that Tuesday's primary vote totals are "peculiar" and "strains credulity," Greg Hach is calling his defeat into question. In a statement to The Point, Hach's spokesman said the amount of money spent in the race alone means there should have been more than twice as many people voting than was reported.

Hach lost the Republican Party line in CD3 to former Assemb. Mike LiPetri by a wide margin. Newsday's unofficial election results have LiPetri receiving 9,414 votes and Hach receiving 1,954. The Nassau County Board of Elections website has LiPetri with 9,025 and Hach with 1,843. The Suffolk BOE website has LiPetri receiving 389 votes and Hach getting 111. New York City's BOE lists LiPetri with 1,484 votes and Hach with 340.

By those unofficial result totals, LiPetri got a combined 10,898 votes and Hach got 2,294. The Associated Press has the same figures with 95% of votes reported. Election results immediately following polls closing are typically fluid and subject to small adjustments. But something would have to be truly amiss for more than half of projected votes not to be accounted for, insiders say.

"On Primary night, news organizations were projecting around 27,000 total votes in this race," Hach spokesman Bill O'Reilly said in a statement to The Point. "That aligned nearly exactly with our campaign's tracking data. But only half of that number is being reported by the boards of election. We are quietly looking into the discrepancy."

The Nassau BOE, though, refutes that idea. In a joint statement texted to The Point, Nassau BOE Commissioners Jim Scheuerman, a Democrat, and Jim Moriarty, a Republican, said the results will be audited.

"We haven't seen any discrepancies ..." the joint statement reads. "We will audit our machines and make sure that every vote counts and there's nothing amiss. We want voters and candidates to feel confident in the electoral process."

A call to LiPetri wasn't immediately returned.

Longtime Republican political consultant Michael Dawidziak cast a skeptical eye on Hach's assertion and told The Point that primaries are low-voter turnout affairs.

"There is no projected vote in any election except a general," Dawidziak said. "... I always tell my campaigns that in a primary, we're literally creating the turnout. ... That's why primaries are almost always turnout victories and not ideological ones."

But O'Reilly contends that the influence of national political figures like President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the CD3 Republican primary would have led to much higher voter turnout. He compared CD3 results with CD4 Republican primary results, saying in CD4 there was "virtually no money spent" but "a higher turnout."

"That's peculiar, indeed," O'Reilly added.

Whether the results are peculiar or not, they stand as of now. LiPetri is the winner and will face Democratic incumbent Rep. Thomas Suozzi in November. O'Reilly said Hach is fine with that — as long as the primary night vote is accurate.

"We can live with not winning, but these numbers don't pass the smell test and we have a duty to look into them," O'Reilly wrote.

— Mark Nolan mark.nolan@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Let's make a deal

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Reference Point

Warnings from America's bicentennial as 250 nears

In the weeks prior to the bicentennial celebration of America back in 1976, the editorial board reflected on the state of democracy and even made some observations relevant today as the 250th birthday of our nation approaches next week.

"It's a pleasure as well as a surprise to note how much more happily the birthday is shaping up than many of us might have predicted a few months ago," the editorial board remarked 50 years ago this month. "Watergate has receded from the nation's consciousness. The economy is turning around. Politics seems to be back on the rails, offering people a real choice among some strong and attractive presidential candidates."

Noting that "sophomoric commercialism" had been overcome by "a genuine Bicentennial spirit," the board was cautiously optimistic that "pageantry" and "sentimentality" would not divert public attention from what it called "the deeper significance of July 4, 1976." The editorial encouraged Long Islanders to enjoy Operation Sail ("may be the most spectacular show ever staged in Long Island waters") and display American flags proudly ("fly the Stars and Stripes on this glorious occasion") but said that celebrations were no substitute for rereading the Declaration of Independence and registering to vote in November.

The editorial board declared "there's more than fireworks to the Bicentennial. The future deserves to be solemnized as well as the past," it said. "As it happens, America's third century may pose a harder test for the Constitution and the national will than its second century did. Perhaps even harder than the first ..."

The editorial observed that in its 200th year, the United States "seems increasingly isolated in a world of hostile or hungry people who show little understanding of the benefits of freedom. And at home it seems ever more difficult to cope with the problems of race, crime, education, employment, productivity, cost of government—to cite a few of our preoccupations."

That rings true today considering the Iran war, unrest over immigration and other financial and technological challenges this century has brought.

"Such concerns shouldn't diminish America's pride on the Fourth—but neither should they be forgotten on the Fifth," the editorial noted. It ended with a warning for the nation as it entered its next era.

"Even after 200 years the declaration turns out to be impressively pertinent. Among other things it provides a detailed accounting of the shortsightedness and arrogance that ultimately cost imperial Britain its superpower status," the board concluded. "Certainly one of the challenges of America's third century is to avoid the same pitfalls ..."

— Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com

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