Poll workers mistakenly recorded zero votes in 98 election districts in the still-unsettled Democratic race for mayor, it was disclosed Friday.
Board of Elections officials discussed the snafus as they began re-canvassing 5,100 voting machines to determine if Bill de Blasio’s vote count will stay above 40 percent — the minimum needed to avert an Oct. 1 runoff with rival Bill Thompson.
The unofficial count has him at a heart-stopping 40.3 percent.
Michael Ryan, the board’s executive director, said the “zero” figures were clocked accidentally by fatigued poll workers and will be corrected when the machines are double-checked by Sunday.
He explained that protocol calls for zeroes to be entered if tally sheets are missing or illegible.
There were 657,330 votes cast in Tuesday’s election, each recorded on mechanical lever machines dating back to the 1960s.
“It’s a long day. People make mistakes,” Ryan said, referring to the Election Day errors.
“People take a reading from the machine, then write it down on a piece of paper called a canvass sheet. There can often be transcription errors.”
As an example, he said a 495 might be entered as 945.
“That would be a flip of 500 votes,” he noted.
On Monday, the board will begin tabulating 78,491 paper ballots — a mix of absentees, affidavits filled out by those whose names were erroneously left off the voting rolls and emergency ballots cast in cases when machines broke down. But officials could not predict when that process would be complete.
“Keep in mind we have no idea what these envelopes contain. Ordinarily speaking, and not specifically to this race, our experience has been that the paper tracks the machines,” Ryan said — an indicator that bodes well for de Blasio.
Thompson, who finished with 26 percent of the vote, is not backing down to pressure from the Democratic establishment to cede the victory to de Blasio.
“As a democracy, our top priority must be that every vote be counted,” he said in a statement.
Thompson held no campaign events Friday, while de Blasio staged a press conference spotlighting his successful effort to keep Long Island College Hospital from closing.
“We are moving forward to the next round of this election one way or another,” an upbeat de Blasio said at the event in Brooklyn.
“You can’t tell a candidate what to do. It’s each candidates’ choice,” he added. “If [Thompson] wants to pursue a full count, he has every right.”
He dismissed any notions of party division, saying Democrats are “doing fine,” even as unions and party big wigs who had endorsed the failed bid of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn shifted support to de Blasio.
Meanwhile, de Blasio backed out of the first mayoral forum of the general election scheduled for Monday at Baruch College because he isn’t yet the official winner.