Great Neck will have to wait until at least next week to find out who was elected to serve on the library board and nominating committee following delays caused by a slate of candidates objecting to proxy ballots, sources told Blank Slate Media.
Board President Liman Mimi Hu and Rory Lancman, both candidates in the election, said objections to 37 proxy ballots were submitted by candidates Jessica Hughes, Christina Rusu and Sara Rivka Khodadadian.
A total of 24 of the objected proxy votes were sent by individuals with East Asian or South Asian surnames, Lancman said.
Hu is running to retain her seat on the board against Hughes while Lancman, Rusu and Karen Hirsch-Romero are running in an at-large election for a vacant seat on the board in a race marked by culture war issues.
Khodadadian is running against Kim Schader for an expiring seat on the library’s nominating committee.
Both seats on the board have four-year terms while the committee seat is a three-year term.
Sources said that more than 3,000 in-person votes were tallied at the election machines on Monday from 10 a.m.- 10 p.m. while more than 330 proxy votes were submitted to the library.
They said the machines’ results showed that Hughes led Hu by 250 votes, Rusu led Lancman by more than 150 votes and Khodadadian led Kim Schader by more than 190 votes.
Lancman and Hu, in a statement, said the approximate 300 proxy ballots that were counted as of Wednesday night resulted in Lancman leading by 22 votes, Hu’s deficit being reduced to 28 votes and Schader’s deficit reduced to 18 votes.
“We are appalled at this abuse of the election process, and at the attempt to deny some residents their right to vote,” a joint statement from Hu and Lancman said. “We are confident that once these obstructions are lifted, and a full and fair count of all our neighbors’ votes is completed, we will be declared the winners of this election.”
Lancman told Blank Slate Media that the slate of candidates who filed the objections are attempting to prevent the votes from being counted. Their actions, he said, reflect the efforts of those trying to stop the vote count during the 2020 presidential election.
“These folks are mirrors of Trump in so many ways, including how they’re handling the election results,” Lancman said. “We’re seeing that here.. Another example of Trumpism in Great Neck. They want to block the counting of the perfectly legitimate and well-known process of mail-in ballots.”
Efforts to reach Jessica Hughes, Christina Rusu, Sara Rivka Khodadadian and library officials for comment on the matter were unavailing.
“If the legitimate ballots are counted, I’ll win and Mimi and Kim will have made up the difference,” Lancman said.
Some have said the race has been reflective of the national culture wars going on throughout society currently, centered on banning or restricting books, primarily related to LGBTQ.
Hu said the placement of certain books is at the discretion of library professionals, touted the importance of “intellectual freedom” and said she is against banning books.
Hughes said the question did not center around censorship, but rather promoting “divisive and exclusionary” content. Library officials, she said, should respond to parental input so they can best serve their community.
Rusu said coming from a communist country gave her an insight into what censorship is and said she does not believe in banning books.
Lancman, a former state Assemblyman and New York City councilman who said he is running to oppose a national trend to pull books from libriary shelves for political reasons, also said banning books has “no place” in Great Neck and that no library should be restricting content to individuals because it may make them feel uncomfortable.
The library district stretches from the Great Neck peninsula to North New Hyde Park and is comprised of the Main Library on Bayview Avenue along with the Lakeville, Parkville and Station branches.