Anthony Como, a former Queens prosecutor and longtime aide to State Senator Serphin R. Maltese, was leading a special election Tuesday night for a City Council seat in Queens that was vacated by Dennis P. Gallagher, a Queens Republican.
According to unofficial results from the New York City Board of Elections, Mr. Como won a four-way battle with 31.7 percent of the vote, just 70 votes more than his closest rival, Elizabeth Crowley, who received 30.7 percent of the vote. The results reflected all of the votes, outside of absentee ballots, having been counted.
But the Board of Elections said that there were 196 absentee ballots that have not yet been tallied, and that there could be additional valid absentee ballots, as long as they are received by next Tuesday.
Paper ballots are typically counted within a week after the machine ballot is tabulated. Mr. Gallagher resigned in April after he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors, admitting that he sexually abused a woman in his district office last summer while he was intoxicated.
Ms. Crowley is a cousin of United States Representative Joseph Crowley, the Democratic Party chairman in Queens. She is also the daughter of Walter and Mary Crowley, each of whom once represented many of the same Queens neighborhoods in the City Council.
Mr. Como, a Republican, is a former commissioner of the City Board of Elections and was endorsed by the Queens Republican Party organization. And his victory was seen as a triumph, not only for the Republican organization in the borough, but also for Senator Maltese, who faces his own re-election battle this year.
In third place was Thomas V. Ognibene with 27.3 percent. Mr. Ognibene was Mr. Gallagher’s predecessor in the Council, having served from 1992 to 2001, when he left his seat because of term-limit requirements.
The fourth candidate was Charles J. Ober, a financial executive and community activist, who received 10 percent of the vote. The district includes Middle Village, Ridgewood and Glendale, and its constituents are considered moderate to conservative.
The Republicans have been eager to hold the seat, one of only three they control in the 51-member Council.
The special election in the 30th Council District on Tuesday was a nonpartisan contest in which candidates were barred under the City Charter from running on the ballot with the name of an established political party.
Nonetheless, most of the candidates in Tuesday’s race had had longstanding affiliations with either the Democratic or Republican Parties.
