Ben Carson Beats Ted Cruz With Both Eyeballs Tied Behind His Back (Because He Is Sleeping)

Ben Carson celebrates his 3rd place finish in the 16th District

As the dust and clichés settle following the New York primary, two things are at least clear: 1) Donald Trump had a YOOOGE win, except in Manhattan, where people apparently know him, and 2) Somehow, Ben Carson won more votes than Ted Cruz in at least two congressional districts, which probably speaks more to Cruz's unpopularity than any last-minute surge for Carson. If there's a contested convention and Ben Carson stays awake for it, this could be very good news for John McCain.

Overall, it was what they call a big night for the Trumpster:  he won every single congressional district in the state, except, whoops, the one Manhattan is in. There, with 100% of precincts reporting, Trump lost to John Kasichby 70 votes in the 12th congressional district (yet mysteriously has a red "winner" checkmark? WTF, AP?):

We're going to decide the checkmark indicates the statewide winner and move on. Thanks to the split vote, Kasich picks up two delegates in the district and Trump only one.

 Also interesting:  While Trump won the most votes in the precinct that is Trump Tower,not everyone who lives in the building voted for him:

And then there's this sad news for Ted Cruz: Ben Carson, whose EEG has almost flatlined, actually came in third in two Westchester County districts, leaving Cruz in fourth. Looks like endorsing Trump actually turned out pretty well for Sleepy Doc. Now Trump can claim he has real coattails or something:

And then there's the screwed-up voter rolls in Brooklyn, which prompted New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer to announce an audit of the city's Board of Elections after news broke that 125,000 Democrats had been removed from voter rolls:

“There is nothing more sacred in our nation than the right to vote, yet election after election, reports come in of people who were inexplicably purged from the polls, told to vote at the wrong location or unable to get in to their polling site,” Mr. Stringer, a Democrat, said.

If it makes you feel any better -- and god knows we're always reassured by bureaucrats in a hurry to cover their asses -- Board of Elections executive director Michael Ryan said that even though 125,000 people were dropped in Brooklyn, 63,000 were added:

He said the decline did not “shock my conscience” because there were 800,000 registered Democrats in Brooklyn, and thousands of people were added and removed from the list every year.

There was a “report a couple years ago that said there were people on the lists who didn’t belong there,” Mr. Ryan said on Tuesday.

“Now we take people off the list who don’t belong there,” he continued, “and there’s some blowback, criticism that we’ve done it inaccurately.”

Will nothing satisfy you people? Like maybe being able to vote when you show up at the polling place? There were also reports of polling places opening late, as well as problems with voting machines.

Mayor Bill de Blasio also issued a statement condemning the screw-ups:

It has been reported to us from voters and voting rights monitors that the voting lists in Brooklyn contain numerous errors, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters from the voting lists ... I am calling on the Board of Election to reverse that purge and update the lists again using Central, not Brooklyn borough, Board of Election staff.

Thank goodness they're going to get that all cleared up, and as far as we can tell, it doesn't appear that the electoral fuckups had any effect on the primary's outcome, apart from being a huge pain in the ass for individual voters, which is reason enough to try to make the creaky electoral machinery work right. They've got six whole months to get everything in order for the general election.

[ New York / Slate / 538 / AP / NYT / Daily Beast ]