The contest to succeed the late Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) in New Jersey’s 9th congressional district remains unexpectedly close, and Republican Billy Prempeh said today that he’s not yet conceding the race, which was called for State Sen. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) by the New Jersey Globe last night and by the Associated Press this afternoon.
Right now, Pou has a lead of four percentage points, 50.6% to 46.2%, a margin of just under 11,000 votes – far closer than most expected in the longtime Democratic district, but still clearly a victory. Prempeh, though, said that he thinks he has won the race, citing a large number of supposed ballots that he said have yet to be counted in the district.
“I believe that I won this race,” Prempeh said in an interview with CBS News. “I think that there’s some issues with the numbers that we’re seeing. The numbers have changed multiple times throughout the night; we still have about 67,000 votes that have not been counted yet. The VBMs won’t be completely counted until Monday, and we’re down 10,000 votes. We saw these numbers move sporadically throughout the day, and I think until we have those 67,000 votes completely counted, we’re not going to have a solid answer.”
Where Prempeh got the idea that there are still 67,000 votes left uncounted is unclear; 244,000 votes have been cast so far, which the AP estimates represents more than 95% of the total votes that will be counted in the district, and periodic reports from the Bergen and Passaic County clerk’s offices indicate there are only around 2,000 mail ballots that have been received but not yet processed. Prempeh did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on his claim.
Prempeh also noted what he said were two discrepancies in the vote counting: first, when Green Party candidate Ben Taylor was erroneously shown to have won tens of thousands of votes due to an apparent data entry error, and second, when a late-counted batch of ballots from Passaic County were added to the total last night and padded Pou’s lead.
Neither of those two supposed discrepancies, though, seemed to be caused by anything untoward. It’s not uncommon for data errors to briefly show unrealistic election outcomes before being corrected, nor is it uncommon for Passaic County, one of the slowest counties in the state at vote counting, to add large batches of votes late in the night.
Prempeh said that he may seek to contest the results when all is said and done, though given Pou’s decently sizable margin, it’s not exactly clear what there would be to contest.
“Yeah, I think we will contest the results, just based off of the discrepancies that I’m seeing here,” Prempeh said. “So I think it’s worth clarifying for the people, because it’s not just me saying this – it’s Democrats, it’s independents, Green Party, Republicans. Everybody across the board is wondering, what’s going here in little District 9 with Billy Prempeh from Paterson? I think people need some clarity on that.”
Pou, for her part, declared victory last night, saying that she was thrilled become the first Latina ever elected to Congress from New Jersey.
“I never imagined that the young Puerto Rican who walked down Grand Street would now be walking in the halls of Congress,” Pou said, per the Paterson Press. “Now I’m going to roll up my sleeves and get to work and go to Washington.”