By Matt Youngfrau
SULLIVAN COUNTY — September 13, 2002 – The New York State Primary elections were held on Tuesday. Due to a variety of circumstances, the results of those elections are unclear and could remain that way for a few days.
With the anniversary of 9/11 the next day, election results were hard to come by. Complete state figures were unavailable at press time.
Also, all of the paper ballots from the election were impounded Wednesday afternoon. No absentee, military, affidavit, or emergency ballot can be touched until the case is heard in court. That case, scheduled for yesterday at 1:30 p.m. in Albany, was brought by New York State Governor George Pataki because there is suspicion that the Independence line ballots were tampered with.
Unofficial Primary results for Sullivan County were released. On the Democratic line, H. Carl McCall received 943 votes (86.83 percent) for Governor, while Andrew Cuomo (who dropped out of the race last week) got 143 (13.17 percent) votes. For Lieutenant Governor, Dennis Mehiel received 598 votes (75.41 percent) as opposed to Charles King with 195 votes (24.59 percent). In the last Democratic race, for Comptroller, Alan Hevesi (653 votes, 72.39 percent) defeated William Mulrow (249 votes, 27.61 percent).
On the Independence line, for Governor, B. Thomas Golisano (30 votes, 52.63 percent) edged out Pataki (27 votes, 47.37 percent). For Lieutenant Governor, Mary Donohue (31 votes, 75.61 percent) defeated William Neild (10 votes, 24.39 percent).
(Golisano is reportedly ahead of Pataki statewide by 900 votes.)
On the Conservative line, Pataki received 86 votes. There was an opportunity to ballot on that line, but the write-ins were unavailable as of press time.
The Right to Life line had a race for Comptroller. Garifalia Christea (7 votes, 58.33 percent) edged out John Berry (41.67 percent).
The last race was on the Working Families line. For Lieutenant Governor, Dennis Mehiel (1 vote, 100 percent) beat out Elon Harpaz and Charles King (neither received a vote). For Comptroller, no one voted for either Hevesi or Mulrow.
Confirmation hearings on the votes and to count the unopened ballots was scheduled to begin on Wednesday, September 18 at 9:30 a.m. However, due to the impound, the date may be changed.