The NY Post reports:
Taxpayers will shell out about $1 million to elect a replacement for disgraced Brooklyn pol Carl Kruger — who pleaded guilty to taking more than $1 million in bribes — although the eventual winner will spend no more than eight months in office.
That’s because Kruger’s 27th District state Senate seat will be wiped off the map by the redistricting process by the end of the year.
There still hasn’t been a winner declared in the March 20 special election to replace Kruger — who resigned in disgrace in December — between Republican David Storobin and Democratic Councilman Lew Fidler.
Storobin unofficially won by a mere two votes. So now, officials will recount all 22,000 ballots by hand — a lengthy process that could take months and hours upon hours of overtime at the Board of Elections.
But the Legislature will adjourn for the year in June, which means the eventual winner may never cast a vote in Albany.
Adding insult to injury is that the cost of the special election keeps increasing.
Board officials said the initial cost to hold the election was $750,000.
That figure covered the cost of poll workers and monitors, transporting the optical-scan voting machines to poll sites, advertising, mailings and other planning and administrative costs.
But overtime costs to deal with the recount are piling up.
Between March 17 and March 31, the board reported paying $125,000 in overtime — most of it to handle the recount, sources said.
Even if only half of the overtime costs are attributed to the recount, the price for the race would be $825,000 through the end of March and nearly $900,000 for the first half of April.
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
5 Responses
The alternative might be to allow short term appointments to fill out the term, or something like what exists under proportional representation where there is a “next person in line” to fill vacancies.
However Storobin has won a meaningful “moral” victory by basically coming to a “tie” in a solidly Democratic area opening up all sorts of prospects for the future, both for him and the Republicans in general. And if the seat had been Republican to begin with, control of the Senate would have been at stake.
Who cares how much the election cost? What else is the money for? Unlike almost everything else the government does, holding elections is actually a legitimate and necessary function of government. So spend whatever it costs.
Storobin deadlocked Fidler against all odds. It is an overwhelmingly Democrat district. Fidler has years of IOU’s from his many years in office. He has overwhelming name recognition, while Storobin is an unknown young lawyer.
So, why didn’t Fidler win by a landslide, as expected?
Because all the major Rabbonim, led by Horav Belsky, SHLIT”A, came out against him because of his support for the entire immoral Toeva agenda.
“Yisroel Kedoshim heim.”–With proper leadership, they will do the right thing.
Maybe if Lew Fidler would have voted against the Term Limits Bill when it came up in the New York City Council about four years ago maybe he would have won by landslide. I know that I would have voted for him.
A Jew voting for Fidler and his kind is doing a Chilul Hashem.
For evil to succeed it is enough that good people do nothing.
Hashem will judge those who:
1. Actively Supported Fidler
2. Actively Supported Storobin
3. Voted for Fidler
4. voted for Storobin
5. Those who did not vote
I would rather have the whole world against me and Hashem on my side than have the world world for me and Hashem against me.