Two years ago, 96% of the members of the House of Representative who ran for re-election won.

With that kind of precedent, Rep. Vito Fossella didn’t have too much to worry about going into yesterday’s election in his district spanning Staten Island and Southwest Brooklyn – that is, until his opponent entered the picture.

The challenger, Frank Barbaro, wasn’t a no-name politician-wannabe like a lot of the people who try to defeat sitting members of Congress.

He is a former Assembly member, a retired state Supreme Court justice, and the man who challenged Ed Koch for the mayoralty in 1981. He has a background of supporting the unions and, in this campaign, he won significant support from labor groups including the United Federation of Teachers and the largest municipal union, District Council 37.

Although Mr. Fossella won the race with 59% of the vote compared to Mr. Barbaro’s 41%, it was one of the closest New York City congressional races, with most precincts reporting.

For example, Carolyn Maloney won 81% of the vote compared to the challenger’s 19%, and Charles Rangel won 90% of the vote, compared with the challenger’s 7%.

Before the elections results were in, a former city parks commissioner, Henry Stern, predicted, “There’s no question that Fossella will win.”

“Politically, Barbaro is a fossil,” he said. “But on the other hand, in his views, Fossella is barbaric.”

He said Mr. Barbaro, 76, is like a 1930s-style union organizer, while Mr. Fossella, 39, is a “right-winger.”

A Democratic consultant, Bob Liff, called Mr. Barbaro “feisty,” a “happy warrior,” and a “classic progressive Democrat.” He said even if Mr. Barbaro didn’t pull off a win, he ran a noteworthy campaign.

“You’ve got to admire him,” Mr. Liff said. “I admire Frank. He’s a feisty guy. He’s a true believer. He’s a real, good politician, a kind of old-fashioned progressive Democrat.”

Yesterday’s election got off to a rocky start with an incorrect ballot at nine voting sites in the 13th Congressional District.

On the Conservative line, the ballots said the candidate was “Vito Barbaro,” rather than Vito Fossella.

In a telephone interview, the executive director of the New York City Board of Elections, John Ravitz, said election officials found out about the problem at 10:30 a.m., three and a half hours after the polls opened. He said technicians fixed the ballots by about 2:30 p.m.

In the four hours between the time the problem was discovered and the time it was fixed, New Yorkers cast their votes on emergency paper ballots, which were printed correctly.

“There was no stopping of voting, which is the most important thing,” Mr. Ravitz said, adding, “We certainly will be doing the review on how this occurred.”

A senior lawyer for the New York Public Interest Research Group, Gene Russianoff, said he understands the “enormous challenge” the Board of Elections faces on voting day, but he said, “They should get the candidates’ names right.”

During the day, both sides said they were optimistic.

The vote coordinator for the Barbaro campaign, Michael Arvanites, said voting was much higher than it was in the 2000 election – something that he said would benefit his team.

“We’ve turned out our vote,” he said. “Basically everybody we wanted to vote turned out.”