Jens-Smith is the only apparent victor in Democratic primary elections, as thousands of absentee ballots remain to be counted

There’s still a long way to go before candidates in two of the three contested Democratic primaries can declare victory, according to unofficial partial results reported by the Suffolk County Board of Elections.

Only Second Assembly District candidate Laura Jens-Smith of Laurel emerged from yesterday’s election with a commanding lead over her opponent, Will Schleisner of Sound Beach. Jens-Smith won nearly 78% of the votes counted so far: 1,732 to Schleisner’s 500. It is very unlikely Schleisner can win enough votes in the absentee ballot count to overcome that kind of deficit.

“Given yesterday’s strong showing and the results of our exit polling, I feel very confident in saying we have won the primary as we now go on to November,” Jens-Smith said this morning.

If her lead holds as expected, the former Riverhead town supervisor will face Riverhead Councilwoman Jodi Giglio, Republican of Baiting Hollow, and Libertarian candidate William Van Helmond of Jamesport, in the November election.

The election results reported so far do not include the unusually large number of absentee ballots in this highly unusual pandemic election.

Those paper ballots, which will be counted manually at the Suffolk County Board of Elections beginning July 1, will likely add thousands of votes to the tallies in the local races for Congress, State Senate and State Assembly. The absentee ballots can alter trends seen in the in-person voting results reported by last night the county board of elections and effectively determine the outcome in two of the three contests.

In the four-way race for the Democratic nomination to face incumbent Republican Lee Zeldin in November, it appears to be a tight race between Perry Gershon of East Hampton and Nancy Goroff of Stony Brook.

With all 473 election districts in the First Congressional District reporting, Gershon so far has a 164-vote lead over Goroff — 5,166 (35.39%) to 5,002 (34.27%).

Bridget Fleming of Sag Harbor is polling third with 4,062 votes. Greg Fischer of Calverton trails the pack with 322 votes. There were 44 write-in ballots, according to the board of elections website.

A total of 14,596 in-person ballots have been counted in the CD-1 contest so far, according to the unofficial results on the BOE website. In the 2018 Democratic primary, a five-way race which Gerson won with 35.53% of the votes cast, 22,240 registered Democrats voted. There are about 144,000 registered Democrats in the congressional district. Information was not immediately available about the number of absentee ballots sent to CD-1 voters in this election.

In the race for the State Senate nomination, it’s a tight contest between Laura Ahearn of Port Jefferson and Valerie Cartright of Port Jefferson Station. Ahearn leads the five-way race so far, with 31.03% (2,360 votes) to Cartright’s 27.88% (2,120), a difference of 240 votes out of 7,605 votes. Tommy John Schiavoni of Sag Harbor is polling third with 1,812 (23.83%), 548 votes behind Ahearn. Information was not immediately available about the number of absentee ballots outstanding in this election. The winner will face Republican Anthony Palumbo of New Suffolk, the current Assembly Member representing the Second Assembly District.

Applications for absentee ballots were sent to all registered Democrats in Suffolk, as per an executive order by Gov. Andrew Cuomo establishing special procedures for this election due to the COVID crisis.

Countywide, the BOE received more than 100,000 absentee ballot applications. The BOE sent official absentee ballots to all eligible voters who submitted applications. As of Friday, the BOE had received 80,000 absentee ballots, according to officials.

To be counted, absentee ballots had to be hand-delivered to the Suffolk Board of Elections office in Yaphank by close of business yesterday or postmarked with yesterday’s date. Mailed ballots, postmarked on or before June 23, must arrive at the board of elections by Tuesday June 30 to be counted.

Correction: This article has been amended to correct the omission of Libertarian Assembly candidate William Van Helmond of Jamesport, who was inadvertently left out of the story as originally published.