NEW YORK - Democrat Fernando Ferrer has enough votes to officially win the mayoral primary and will face Republican Michael Bloomberg on Nov. 8, officials said Monday.
After a week of uncertainty, Ferrer edged just past the 40 percent mark as election workers finished counting thousands of absentee and other untallied votes cast in the Sept. 13 primary, Board of Elections officials said.
Officials had said a runoff would have been required by law with the second-place finisher, Rep. Anthony Weiner (news, bio, voting record), if no one had reached 40 percent — even though Weiner had conceded defeat.
A "painstaking recanvass" found Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president, received 192,243 votes of the more than 478,000 votes cast, Board of Elections Executive Director John Ravitz said Monday. That put him about at 40.15 percent, or 720 votes over the 40 percent threshold.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050919/ap_on_el_st_lo/nyc_mayor- - -
Ferrer has still got a
long way to go to offer a compelling reason for people to vot for him, based on his performance in the primary campaign.