I haven't been able to reach any officials with the city's Board of Elections yet, but if you ask Republican Anthony Como, the special election in Queens' 30th Council District is over.

"I won by 38 votes," Como told me this evening. "I feel great."

Also running in the four-way special election were Democrats Elizabeth Crowley and Charles Ober and former Republican Councilman Tom Ognibene.  read more »

This post has been updated.

The counting is still going on in the special election for the Queens 30th City Council district, but a spokesman for the candidate who came in last place is claiming victory--because he helped prevent another Democrat, Elizabeth Crowley, from winning.

According to unofficial results, Crowley is a few votes behind Republican candidate Anthony Como.

“We won this race," Sam Esposito, a spokesman for Democratic candidate Charles Ober, wrote in an email to supporters, which was forwarded to me by a Democratic operative. "Maybe not in the way many of you would understand, but we really are winners. We had 2 goals, 1 Charlie would win but more importantly was to not let Crowley take that seat."

It goes on to say, “We put the Queens machine in their place. We hurt Crowley's chances of ever getting elected.”

Also, Ober is looking for someone to challenge Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan, who is from Ober’s Democratic club but did not support him for reelection.

“I am also putting word out that we are looking for people who want to run for the assembly seat against Nolan. And the committee chair against Vanbramer. I will run your petitions with Charles in certain areas and I will run the petitions for you in the other areas also. All I need are 2 people who would like to run for office.”

I left a message for Esposito and was unable to reach Ober via cell phone.

The entire email is after the jump.  read more »

As of this morning, it looked like Republican Anthony Como had edged out Democrat Elizabeth Crowley to win yesterday's special election for a City Council seat in Queens.

According to the Board of Elections, with 100 percent of precincts reporting, the results are:

Anthony Como: 2,352 votes (31.71 percent of the vote)

Elizabeth Crowley: 2,282 votes (30.77 percent)

Thomas Ognibene: 2,031 votes (27.38 percent)

Charles Ober: 752 votes (10.14 percent)  read more »

Democratic City Council candidate Charles Ober got the Independence Party endorsement for the June 3 special election that will determine who will finish Dennis Gallagher’s term.

“Charles Ober has a genuine affinity for, and practical track record on, the issues and processes of grassroots democracy that the Independence Party cares about," said the party’s Queens chairman, Gerald Everett, in a public statement.  read more »

Juniper Park Civic Association, a (surprisingly?) large and organized community group in western Queens, is hosting a debate for candidates in the June 3 special election to fill Dennis Gallagher’s City Council seat, and it will be followed the next day by a forum for candidates in the same race.  read more »

The two Republican candidates running in the June 3 special election to fill Councilman Dennis Gallagher's seat in Queens have already split the local G.O.P. into a conservative faction and an establishment one. Now there's a hint that the same thing, albeit to a lesser degree, could happen with the two Democratic candidates.  read more »