Lunin-Pack concedes election to Tova Plaut

The hotly contested Lawrence Board of Education election ended on Wednesday afternoon, when Jesse Lunin-Pack — who on election night, May 21, appeared to be far head of rival Tova Plaut — conceded.

The board said it would meet at 9 p.m. on Thursday at Lawrence High School to make it official. Lunin-Pack said he was given permission to address the meeting.

When results were first reported on Election Night by school district Superintendent Gary Schall, Lunin-Pack was ahead, 1,610 to 1,184, a lead of 426 votes. Dov Herman, who also ran in the race to replace Dr. Solomon Blisko, received 840 votes. Blisko did not run for re-election.

“I come to the conclusion that what happened was nothing more than human error,” Lunin-Pack said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

In the first recount, the day after the election, Lunin-Pack’s initial advantage became a 37-vote lead for Plaut.

“Because the count did not match what was reported by poll watchers, including my own, the [school] board requested a recount,” Lunin-Pack wrote in a letter to friends and supporters on Facebook on May 23.

“The results are going to be what they are going to be,” he told the Nassau Herald. “The question is, how did this happen?”

Plaut said only, “I have no comments until all results are official.”

The recount was initiated because district officials thought that a mistake might have been made in the reporting of the election numbers, according to Schall. “As soon as the election was over, the machines were under lock and key and secured, and officially impounded,” he said, adding that the machines were picked up by the Nassau County Board of Elections on May 22, and the district did a recount at the elections board’s Mineola office. “All indications point to a very, very close election,” Schall said.

The district rents the voting machines from the Nassau County Board of Elections, but the board has no jurisdiction over recounts, which are the district’s responsibility.

Lunin-Pack said a second recount was conducted on May 23 or May 24, and the results were the same as the first recount.

Board of Education President Dr. Asher Mansdorf said the school board did not initiate the recount. “We’re not contesting anything,” he said. “The election is run by the [district] clerk, and the [district] attorney said they felt the numbers needed to be recanvassed before they become official.”

Neither District Clerk Mohinder Bharaj nor Al D’Agostino, the district attorney, nor Lunin-Pack’s attorney, Desiree Fusco, returned calls seeking comment.

State Education Dept. spokeswoman Antonia Valentine said she could not comment “because of the possibility that the commissioner may be asked to rule on the matter in an appeal.” She did say, however, that election inspectors tally the votes and inform a school district official of the results. If the district cannot determine a winner after the recounts or a candidate challenges the results, an appeal can be filed.

On Tuesday, district offered no explanation for the significant disparity in its counts.

This story was reported and written by Jeffrey Bessen, editor of the Nassau Herald, where a version of this story appeared on Wednesday.