The New York City Board of Elections certified its results on Tuesday, which means I now know that my vote really did count.
According to the official results of the race for Justice of the Supreme Court in the 11th Judicial District, Bradley Chain received one vote in Assembly District 36, and when taken to the borough-wide vote tally, Chain’s one vote tied him with — among other “B” first name write-in candidates — Barney Rubble, Bart Simpson, Bernie Mac, Big Bird, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Bobby Shmurda, and Bruce Willis.
Who’s Bradley Chain, the mystery man tied with all these celebrities, real and fictional? He’s a guy I’ve known since we were 8 years old, who grew up in Queens, still lives in Queens, and is a lawyer. Perfect candidate for judge, in my book, which is why, ever since I moved to Queens in 2004, I’ve made a habit of voting for him as a write-in.
You may wonder if that’s just throwing away a vote, and no, it isn’t. The Queens Supreme Court election is one in which you vote for nine candidates, and each party gets nine nominees. This time around, there were four candidates running as both Democrats and Republicans, which meant that they were unopposed — and also really weird, because who in 2020 is identifying as both a Democrat and a Republican?
This happens every time, and I always do write-ins, both as a small yelp against the system, and as a way to validate, once the ballots are tallied, that my vote really did count.
My vote also counted for Queens Borough President, in what may have been the country’s least consequential election. New York’s borough presidents are a vestige of county executives from before the consolidation of the city in 1898, and became almost entirely insignificant after a Supreme Court decision in 1989 abolished the city’s Board of Estimate. These days, the responsibility of a borough president is to preside over a small, borough-specific discretionary budget, and have their name on road signs when you cross a bridge between boroughs.
Borough presidents serve four-year terms, but this year’s election in Queens was just to serve through 2021 because the post was vacated by Melinda Katz after her successful run for the much more important job of Queens District Attorney. It also was no contest, because the real election was the Democratic primary in June. In the general, everyone knew Democratic nominee Donovan Richards would win handily, which he did, with 65% of the 790,241 votes counted, over Joann Ariola (Republican/Conservative/Save Our City) and Dao Yin (Red Dragon).
So, my vote went to the man who should use the Queens discretionary budget on some dang run support, Jacob deGrom.
Unfortunately, he fell short, one vote behind Jerry Seinfeld, and two votes behind Jesus Christ. But among sports figures, deGrom was right there with Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, whose vote also came from my assembly district, as well as Ron Artest, Russell Wilson, and Artemi Pangrin, from a voter who presumably meant Artemi Panarin.
That’s a surprisingly low tally of sports write-ins, perhaps because there were a lot more voters like me in the Supreme Court race who saw all the multi-party candidates and said heck no to that. Also, of course, there were nine spots to vote for those judges.
So, who are Queens’ new sports judges? The people of The World’s Borough voted, and we have the results…
Steve Cohen – 3
Aaron Judge – 3
Eli Manning – 3
Pete Alonso – 2*
Bill Belichick – 2*
Tom Brady – 2
John Cena – 2
Jacob deGrom – 2
Dwayne Johnson – 2
Daniel Jones – 2
Babe Ruth – 2
Gary Sanchez – 2
David Wright – 2
Carmelo Anthony – 1
Stone Cold Steve Austin – 1
Charles Barkley – 1
Gary Cohen – 1
Peter Czech (sic) – 1
Ron Darling – 1
John Farrell – 1
Lou Ferrigno – 1
Freddy Freeman (sic) – 1
Brett Gardner – 1
Bill Goldberg – 1
Andy Greene – 1
Rex Grossman – 1
Becky Hammon – 1
Rickey Henderson – 1
Keith Hernandez – 1
Aaron Hicks – 1
Hulk Hogan – 1
Jonathan Isaac – 1
LeBron James – 1
Derek Jeter – 1
Joe Judge – 1
Alexis Lafreniere – 1
Francisco Linder (sic) – 1
Don Mattingly – 1
Willie Mays – 1
John Mitchell – 1
John Moore – 1
Jon Moxley – 1
Ron Naclerio – 1
Cam Newton – 1
Brandon Nimmo – 1
Michael Piazza – 1
Jose Reyes – 1
Mitch Robinson – 1
Sid Rosenberg – 1
Jeff Skinner – 1
Kelly Slater – 1
Jesse Spector – 1
David Stern – 1
Michael Strahan – 1
Joe Stugotz – 1
Tim Tebow – 1
Gleyber Torres – 1
Mike Tyson – 1
Gio Urshela – 1
Luke Voit – 1
Tyler Wade – 1
Serena Williams – 1
* – The Deadspin Canvassing Board has determined that Pete Alonso (1 vote) and Peter Alonso (1 vote) are the same person. Same for Bill Belichik (sic, 1 vote) and William Belichick (1 vote).
I did not know that I was running, and did not vote for myself — my sports vote here was Serena Williams — but please consider this an official concession and congratulations to Queens’ new judges. Also, a big shoutout to whoever the person is, assuming it’s one person, who cast votes for Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez, far more inspired for Queens than the single voter (again, assuming) who voted for Huey Duck, Dewey Duck, and Louie Duck.
What we’ve learned here is that you can buy your way into office, as Steve Cohen did, and that three people voting for a judge simply picked their favorite Judge (and it’s not Joe).
Most importantly, when it was all on the line, in what we were constantly told was the most important election of our lifetimes, Eli Manning once again came out on top against Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.
PS: Deadspin believes in the principle of the secret ballot as a bulwark of American democracy, but a source has confirmed that the vote for me came from a member of my household.
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