Pro-Sex Work NYC DA Candidate Now Trails In Controversial Count

In what appeared to be a stunning victory for the decriminalization of sex work, outsider candidate Tiffany Cabán appeared to win the Democratic primary in the race for district attorney in the New York City borough of Queens, as AVN.com reported.  But a week after the voting in Queens, Cabán’s narrow victory of just 1.3 percentage points was in serious danger, after a review of “affidavit ballots” by election officials resulted in 2,300 of those ballots being tossed, according to a New York Times report. As a result, by June 4, Cabán’s lead had evaporated and her opponent Melinda Katz, the Queens borough president said to be the favorite of the local Democratic party “establishment,” held a slim lead of just 16 votes. Due to the narrow vote margin after the completion of the initial count, the race is headed to a manual recount set to begin this week anyway, but even a recount appears unlikely to settle the controversy over invalidated ballots in the race.  Cabán campaigned on a platform that included a promise to effectively decriminalize voluntary sex work in the New York borough, promising to devote sex-crime resources to prosecuting only those accused of “non-consensual” offenses such as trafficking and rape. Cabán also performed below expectations in the absentee ballots that remained to be counted after election night. Initially, Cabán’s supporters said that of those 3,400 then-uncounted absentee ballots, Katz would not gain enough votes to overcome the pro-sex work candidate’s lead.  Instead, Katz dominated the absentee ballot count, winning 1,901 votes there to just 751 for Cabán, a net gain of 1,150 votes for Katz, pushing her past her upstart opponent by 20 total votes. But that result came after election official invalidated about 80 percent of the affidavit, or “provisional,” ballots cast in the race. Those ballots were cast by voters who showed up at the polls despite being unregistered or were for some other reason absent from voter rolls. Such voters may then sign an affidavit affirming they are, in fact, eligible to vote—but it is then up to election officials to review the affidavit ballots and accept them as valid, or reject them. While Cabán’s supporters have alleged a conspiracy to “steal” the election from the 31-year-old public defender, Katz’s backers say that their candidate has won the election by simply outworking Cabán with a campaign designed to appeal to absentee voters, who tend to be older and likely to side with more experienced, familiar Democratic candidates. Cabán’s support was focused heavily in the northwest districts of Queens, areas that are considered to be undergoing gentrification at rates faster than the remainder of the borough, according to the Queens local news site, QNS.com. Photo By CabanFor Queens.com