Tova Plaut wins Lawrence board race

According to a statement posted on Facebook on Wednesday by Jesse Lunin-Pack, the Atlantic Beach resident has conceded the disputed Lawrence Board of Education race to Tova Plaut.

When the results were first reported on Election Night on May 21, Lawrence School District officials said that Lunin-Pack had won the election by 426 votes over Plaut, who lives in Cedarhurst. Woodmere resident Dov Herman, the other candidate in the race for Dr. Solomon Blisko's seat, received 840 votes. Blisko decided not to run for re-election.

Superintendent Gary Schall said there was a possible discrepancy in the vote count. The district locked and impounded the voting machines. The next day the machines were loaded onto trucks and taken to the Nassau County Board of Elections.

Two recounts were conducted at the board's Mineola office by Lawrence district officials. It was found that Plaut had 37 more votes than Lunin-Pack. He congratulated her on Wednesday.

"I come to the conclusion that what happened was nothing more than human error," said Lunin-Pack, adding he has received permission to address the board at Thursday's meeting where the results will be officially announced. That meeting will be at Lawrence High School at 9 p.m.

Full statement from Jesse Lunin-Pack's campaign

At approximately 3:30 p.m. [Wednesday], Jesse Lunin-Pack placed a call to Tova Plaut to congratulate her on winning election to the School Board of the Lawrence Union Free School District. This concession put to rest an election that has held this district in limbo for over a week, as its results had been questioned ever since they were announced.

We know that many supporters of the campaign are terribly disappointed by this news — and so are we. We ran a good, positive campaign, and received a tremendous amount of support from a wide cross-section of the Lawrence community. But all good things must come to an end, and it is time to put this election behind us.

Members of the Elect-Lunin-Pack campaign team have worked tirelessly over the past week to verify the election results. We have received the full cooperation of the Board and the [school] district’s attorney who ensured that all of our questions were answered, and our requests for information responded to in a timely manner.

Special thanks must go out to Desiree Fusco of Bondi, Iovino, & Fusco, who represented the campaign as our lawyer – and took the lead role in managing the recanvassing of the voting machines while Jesse was away on business.

In order to verify that no votes had been added to Ms. Plaut’s total after the close of the polls, it was necessary for the campaign to examine both the voter lists and the sign-in registries for the election. After examining these records, we are confident that the number of voters who signed in to vote on Election Day is consistent with the number of voters who voted on the machines. More plainly, we do not believe that someone somehow added hundreds votes for Ms. Plaut after the polls closed.

We have also seen the original documents used to report the count incorrectly. Looking at the correct numbers and the original, incorrect numbers, it is easy to understand the mistake that was made. For whatever reason, the third digit of the number of votes for Ms. Plaut from two machines was dropped.

“I am now confident that I understand the mistake that led to the incorrect results that were reported the night of the election” explained Jesse Lunin-Pack. “While I understand what the mistake was, I do not understand how it was allowed to happen. The Lawrence community must have the utmost confidence in the integrity of elections. I call upon the board to investigate this thoroughly, and to report back to the community what went wrong, and the steps put in place to make sure this can never happen again. I look forward to helping with that process in any way I can.”

The campaign congratulates all the school board candidates on a well-run and hard-fought campaign. We particularly thank candidate and outgoing board member Nahum Marcus for his many years of service on the board, where he has been a tireless advocate for the special needs children in our community, and a champion of educational excellence for all.

The School Board will be meeting at 9 p.m. Thursday at Lawrence High School to certify the election results. Jesse has asked for and been granted a few minutes to address the Board and any members of the public in attendance at the meeting.

“One of the major issues of the campaign was the need to open up the process of what the board actually does. But an open process does nothing if the public does not participate.” Jesse explained. “I recognize that in the past, school board meetings could be unpleasant affairs. This needs to change. I hope that as many members of the Lawrence community as possible will come to the meeting Thursday night, and join me in wishing the new board success.”