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A Few Clouds Jacobs: nothing illegal about $50K donation to County Democratic Committee
Ballot count in State Senate race could take weeks
Though the State Senate returns on Thursday, the Nassau County Board of Elections has not yet counted the more than 4,000 absentee ballots and affidavits after last week’s special election for the 9th Senate District seat once held by former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.
The Board of Elections said it was waiting until the April 26 deadline to receive absentee ballots in the mail, and for a court-ordered impound of voting machines to be lifted in order to do a routine recanvassing of the machines and certify a winner, a process that could take weeks.
“Anytime there is a close election you want to dot your i’s and cross your t’s,” a spokesman for the board told the Herald. “Our job is to preserve the integrity of the vote and make sure that every vote counts.”
Meanwhile, Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Beach), who narrowly defeated his Republican opponent, Chris McGrath, by 780 votes on Election Night, and Nassau County Democratic Committee Chairman Jay Jacobs responded on Tuesday to an Albany-Times Union article that said a chief fundraiser for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Ross Offinger, procured a “publicly untraceable” $50,000 donation to the Nassau County Democratic Committee to help win the 9th Senate District race.
According to the publication, the donation is listed in the state Board of Elections’ database as coming from A&J Contracting, “a little-known firm incorporated in Dover, Del. It went to the operating account of the Nassau County Democratic Committee, which spent and donated heavily to support Kaminsky in the special election. It was one of the largest gifts given to the county party so far this year. Based on Board of Elections records, it was the company’s first donation to any political entity or candidate.”
The Times Union also reported that Offinger solicited campaign donations as part of de Blasio’s 2014 efforts to retake the State Senate, now the focus of an investigation by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office into possible campaign finance law violations.
But Jacobs said that the article is misleading and that Kaminsky’s campaign was not involved with the recent donation secured by Offinger.
