Voodoo Who? Brooklyn politics is notoriously bare-knuckled, but never before has Voodoo marked a primary in the Borough of Churches. Until now.

Last week, Assemblymember Rhoda Jacobs was awakened by a late-night phone call from her mother, who lives overseas. As it turned out, Jacobs' son was awake as well, but for an altogether different reason: He was busy cleaning a dead chicken off of the family car. "My neighbor, who is a former cop, rang the doorbell and told him (Jacobs' son) that there was a dead chicken on the car and he really ought to get rid of it," said Jacobs. "Sometime between midnight and four, somebody had put a dead chicken on the car, and my son and I, after getting rid of it, we discovered they had flung another one on the side of the house. I'm not prepared to say what it means."

Jacobs is being challenged by Zachary LaReche, a Haitian-American. LaReche did not return calls. His attorney, Paul Wooten, said, "I've met some of (LaReche's) people and I'd find it very hard to believe they did something like that." The dead chickens may signal someone's intent to put a curse on the incumbent assemblymember, but she does not seem fazed. "It really doesn't scare me, no," she said. "Maybe I'm supposed to take it seriously." LaReche was thrown off the ballot for the Democratic primary, but Wooten said he will run in the general election on the Independence line.

Without A Trace The case of the missing specs continues to confound the most veteran political observers. Last week, over 300 pages of specific objections filed by State Senator Marty Markowitz disappeared and have not been found since. The specs were filed against the petitions of Wellington Sharpe, Markowitz's opponent.

After the Board of Elections rejected 2,000 of Sharpe's 2,800 signatures, he appealed to the Supreme Court. The specs vanished somewhere between the Board of Elections and the court. Supreme Court Justice Melvin Barasch accepted a new set of original specs from Markowitz's lawyer's, including state Senate Minority Leader Martin Connor. Currently, Barasch and the attorneys are going over the specs and petitions line-by-line. Markowitz said that it would be ridiculous for him or any member of his team to make their own papers vanish. He added: "There are certain rules and regulations that both challengers and incumbents have to live by, and that's all there is to it."

Sharpe said that he had no idea how the papers disappeared and that it would be in his own best interests for them to be around. "Why would I or anyone pertaining to me remove specs when we know for sure that the numbers are there?" he said. He said that since the line-by-line review began, he has gained signatures, inching him closer to ballot status. There was an inside buzz that Sharpe had been the last one to see the papers when he signed them out to conform-implying that he may have taken them. "If someone made that allegation they need to make it to my face, because that's the first time I'm hearing that," said Sharpe. "And it's not true."

The Four-Foot Fraud One of the more zany fraud trials of the season centers around an 11-year-old petition carrier collecting signatures for Alec Brook-Krasny, the primary opponent of Assemblymember Adele Cohen. The boy was offered a job carrying the petitions by Eugene Lanskoy, a clerk at Fun-O-Rama, which is owned by Brook-Krasny. While several signatories thought it strange that a young boy was carrying petitions, the gig wasn't up until the prepubescent foot soldier meandered through his home turf, the Brightwater Towers, which also happens to be home to District Leader Marsha Rapaport, a close ally of Cohen. A neighbor called Rapaport and informed her of the situation, and Rapaport's daughter went out to investigate. Rapaport's daughter had a conversation with the boy, questioned him and signed a petition sheet to provide proof of the meeting. "I cannot tell you how amazing this was," said Cohen.

When the boy brought the petitions back, Lanskoy falsified witness signatures, said Cohen. The sheet with Rapaport's daughter's signature was never filed. Cohen's attorneys are now trying to prove that Brook-Krasny encouraged the fraud. The judge has deferred decision in the case. Brook-Krasny, who turned in almost three times the necessary amount of valid signatures, said that he was not connected to the fraudulent petitions. "I told the judge, I said your Honor, if you think that I sent the boy to the building where one of my opponents lives, then just shoo me off the ballot, because who needs a stupid assemblyman," he said.

Norman Homebound Assemblymember Clarence Norman, Jr. has traded his plane ticket to Los Angeles for a pair of comfortable shoes to pound the pavement in homey Crown Heights. Norman, who is in an already nasty primary battle with James E. Davis, was automatically made a delegate to the Democratic National Convention due to his status as county leader. But because of the challenge he's facing-Norman defeated Davis by only 580 votes in 1998-Norman has decided to forgo the convention and canvass the 43rd A.D. instead. An alternate delegate will go to L.A. in his place. "No, I'm not going this year," said Norman. "I have a primary. I'm here shaking hands and doing subway stations and going door to door, so I'll watch the proceedings on TV as I have the opportunity. But right now I'm focused on my reelection."

Davis was gleeful when told of Norman's decision, using the opportunity to blast his opponent and take credit for keeping the county leader close to home. "As a registered Democrat, I am outraged that Clarence Norman, Jr. would neglect his duties in representing Brooklyn at the Democrat National Convention," he said. "At the same token, it goes to show you that James E. Davis has put some flesh back on those dry bones. I brought him back to the 43rd Assembly District."

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