Morris Township Committeeman Peter Mancuso is two-for-two in election recounts this month.
Yet despite gaining two more votes on Monday over Democratic candidate William “Bud” Ravitz– widening his lead to 15 votes–Mancuso can’t uncork the champagne just yet.
Ravitz’s team said it still may ask Superior Court Assignment Judge Stuart Minkowitz to count 42 provisional ballots that were rejected at the polls on Election Day because they were not sealed.
“This appears to be a unique circumstance in which so many provisional ballots were unsealed,” said Scott Salmon, an attorney for the Morris County Democrats.
Mancuso, 82, seeks a seventh term on the Township’s governing body. He is the lone Republican on a committee that was all-GOP until two years ago.
The retired governor of the New York Stock Exchange reacted calmly to Monday’s outcome.
“I’m feeling two votes more confident than I was this morning,” Mancuso said after the two-and-a-half hour recount in the Morris County voting booth warehouse in Cedar Knolls.
Earlier this month, Morris County election commissioners gathered to count provisional ballots and votes by mail that were postmarked on Election Day. That exercise reduced Mancuso’s 48-vote election night lead to a 13-vote margin.
(Technically speaking, that wasn’t a re-count. But special counts of these ballots only occur after a very close finish at the polls, when they could change the outcome.)
At Monday’s recount, Mancuso picked up three votes, and Ravitz, one, from scrutiny of those machine-scanned votes-by-mail. So the net gain was two for Mancuso. Election commissioners also recounted results from all 46 voting machines used in the Township; those numbers were unchanged.
BY THE NUMBERS: MANCUSO / RAVITZ
Voting machines: Mancuso 2655, Ravitz 2451 (unchanged)
Votes-by-mail: 459 to 613
Votes-by-mail, postmark Election Day, received within 48 hours: 28 to 48 (net gain of 2 for Mancuso)
Provisional ballots: 54 to 69
Totals: Mancuso 3,196, Ravitz 3,181.
Dale Kramer, Morris County’s administrator of elections, said likely questions for the judge would involve the chain of custody of the rejected ballots. Are there any signs that the voters attempted to seal their ballots? Did the ballots come unsealed after they were handed to poll workers?
It’s the voter’s responsibility to seal his or her provisional ballot, said Laurie Fiero Brownstein, a county election commissioner who is a Democrat. “It’s in big black letters” on the ballot, which must be licked like an envelope to seal it shut, she said.
Salmon said he believes he has two weeks to request court intervention. He said he thought the judge’s order for Monday’s recount encompassed the rejected ballots, but county officials said no.
Ravitz, 58, did not attend on Monday. Reached afterward, he said he plans to meet with his campaign manager and Township Democratic leaders early this week.
“It’s an odd feeling, being the last race in the county to be decided,” Ravitz said.
Mancuso said he’s looking forward to the “best day ever” with his family on Thanksgiving. Asked if he anticipates any political discussion over dinner, he smiled.
“It depends when the wine runs out,” Mancuso said.
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