By Emily Cadei CQ Staff
The count of absentee ballots in New Yorks special election starts in earnest Thursday with one state election official predicting it could be two more weeks before any final tallies are known.
The race for the 20th District House seat between
Republican Jim Tedisco and
Democrat Scott Murphy has come down to absentee ballots after election night totals had Murphy leading Tedisco by 59 votes.
All but two of the 10 counties in the upstate district have since conducted a re-canvassing of their voting machine totals which has led the count to fluctuate since then. An unofficial count by the state board of elections as of the close of business Wednesday had Tedisco a longtime New York assemblyman leading first-time candidate Murphy by 17 votes.
A state Supreme Court ruling April 6 cleared the way for the count of more than 6700 absentee ballots to begin Wednesday ut New York Board of Elections Public Information Officer John Conklin said that most counties spent the first day sorting the ballots and providing detailed paper work on each voter to the campaigns.
The campaigns are entitled to have copies of the absentee applications the ballot envelopes and the voter registration lists among other data Conklin said. There are approximately six things the county officials will have to make copies of for each voter" and provide to both campaign before they can begin the counting process" he said.
The majority of counties confirmed to CQ Politics that they would begin actually opening and counting ballots Thursday. The board of elections for Saratoga the districts most populous county said it began opening ballots Wednesday.
The Murphy campaign reported Wednesday evening that Delaware County was the first to complete its count and it said Murphy gained 20 votes. The Delaware County Board of Elections did not respond to calls seeking confirmation.
Tedisco won that county by 23 votes on election night.
Most county election officials said they expected to complete their absentee ballot counts on Friday.
The process however does not end there.
During the review and counting of absentees both campaigns have the opportunity to challenge ballots that are counted or rejected either based on the information on the ballot envelope or the way the ballot itself is filled out. Those ballots will be set aside and subject to review by the New York Supreme Court based in Dutchess County on a yet-to-be-determined date.
The counties also have yet to receive all military and overseas ballots which are not due until April 13.
Of 1045 such absentee ballots mailed out only 201 have been mailed back the state board of elections reported on Wednesday evening.
Both sides say they will come out ahead when all the absentee ballots are finally counted but such assertions are purely conjecture. Of the absentee ballots returned 3188 belong to voters registered with the Republican or Conservative parties which endorsed Tedisco and 2405 are from registered Democrats or Working Family Party voters which backed Murphy.
Independent voters also submitted 157 absentee ballots.
Republicans have touted that fact as an indication they will come out ahead National Republican Congressional Committe Chairman Pete Sessions R-Tex. predicted Wednesday that Jim Tediscos current lead will increase given the Republican advantage among absentee ballots."
However 20th District voters have veered away from party line votes in recent elections with the Republican-leaning district sending Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand to Congress in 2006 and 2008. Gillibrand was appointed to the Senate in January to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton who became secretary of State opening up the seat.
And political data analyst and blogger Nate Silver noted that there tend to be a relatively higher proportion of absentee ballots returned in counties where Murphy performed well on election night."
All of which ultimately means that the races winner will only be known after all of the ballots have been opened and all the ballot challenges are hashed out in court which Conklin said would probably take a couple of weeks."
Katie Brown contributed to this story.
