In the Special election for the NY-20 congressional seat, Scott Murphy (D) currently leads by 401 votes and that number is likely to change some more in the next day or two as many of the results of yesterday’s and today's counting get released and posted on the State Board of Elections’ website here:
http://www.elections.state.ny.us/
Here's two fresh news reports that give good run downs of where we are now:
http://www.timesunion.com/...
http://www.amny.com/...
http://online.wsj.com/...
It looks like almost 1000 ballots got counted yesterday and today and reported this afternoon.
More news below the fold...
UPADATE # 5
Wow. It's about over now. It looks like 799 ballots got counted and reported today. That is not counting balots that were rejected as void, which might account for anywhere from 40 to 350 more.
So there are 858 ballots unaccounted for, with one report stating that only 550 remain challenged. If that is the case, then about 308 ballots are now void (a number that is very much in the range of what was predicted earlier).
Murphy leads by 401 and if there are only 550 more challenges to count, then it seems pretty clear that Murphy will be the winner, and proably very soon. Tedisco may concede as early as tonight.
UPADATE # 4
It seems from these reports that about 700 challenged ballots had their challenges dropped today by attorneys for Murphy and Tedisco. If that's true, then we should expect those ballots to be counted in a matter of 1 to 3 days. If the number of contested ballots remaining after that is smaller than Murphy's lead, then it's likely that Tedisco will concede. If concession was not probable or if dealy for the sake of delay was the only goal, it seems very unlikely that Tedisco would have dropped so many challenges today.
No new numbers yet until the 4:00 update. Whent hat comes in I'll have the new numbers up.
END UPDATE
One report indicates that Murphy’s lead might drop to 326 this morning when some results from Saratoga county are added to the tally. But we might also see results from Washington County that could offset that change in the count. Since we don’t really know how many of the so called "set-aside" ballots each county has to count it’s impossible to guess what the change might be. We have only one clue... several early reports indicated that the total number of these set-aside ballots was only around 100. But since 187 of them have already been counted in 5 counties, and more are expected in two or three more counties this morning, we don’t have much to go on other than to expect the number remaining to be smaller rather than larger.
Also in Judge Brand’s court today some ballots that have already been opened and were challenged based on the condition of the ballot (called ballot challenges rather than voter challenges), will be examined, ruled on and counted. There are conflicting reports that the number of these ballot challenged ballots is either 188 or 251. I think it’s possible that the judge will be able to look at them all and rule on them today. So we may have another update tonight or tomorrow morning with the count from these ballots. We have no information if these ballots might favor Murphy or Tedisco or if they will contain a lot of void ballots.
Where we are now
Here are the numbers I have now. Some are guesses and estimates. It seems that Saratoga and maybe Otsego counties have reported their number of challenged ballots and included in that count the set-aside ballots as well.
I’ll update this when the morning update comes out
BACKGROUND
Here is some back ground for people that are new to this election count:
Murphy ended up trailing the Republican, Jim Tedisco, by 66 votes after the election day votes were counted. It was known that Murphy was going to gain some votes when the 7146 absentee ballots were counted, but not how many. Linear projections using the election day results in each of the ten counties suggested that he would gain about 144 votes from the absentee count. More than enough to take the lead and win the election.
Now with more than 77% of the absentee ballot count reported, Murphy is doing much better than that projected total. So well, in fact, that Tedisco’s team used the old trick (ala MN Senate race) of frivolously challenging hundreds of absentee ballots that are very likely to be votes for Murphy. This gives the illusion that the race is much tighter than it really is, until these challenged ballots are finally adjudicated by a judge and get counted.
Definitions:
Set-aside ballots – During the count of the 7146 paper ballots, there were some cases where attorneys’ from one side (usually Tedisco’s side) wished to challenge a ballot but were overruled by both the Republican and Democratic County Official. To be challenged, apparently at least one of the county officials had to agree that the challenge was valid. The Tedisco team argued that the county officials did not have the authority to over rule challenges, the county officials disagreed. Some county officials went ahead and opened and counted those ballots while the Tedisco attorneys wailed. In other counties the county officials agreed to "set aside" those ballots until they could get clarification of the rules from a legal authority. These ballots were not really challenged, nor were they counted or voided. They’ve just sort of been laying there ever since. The judge ordered last week that the counties should open them and count them. He clarified that order again this Monday. So far five counties have opened the set aside ballots and counted them:
49 in Columbia
5 in Greene
1 in Essex
131 in Warren
These counties apparently had zero set-aside ballots:
Delaware
Dutchess
Rensselaer
And we think that these three counties had some and were counting them yesterday:
Otsego
Washington
Saratoga
It’s not clear whether or not Otsego has any set-aside ballots. There have been conflicting news reports on that issue.
Ballot challenges - Ballots that are challenged based on the condition of the ballot itself once it is opened and examined. Usually things line stray lines, check marks in the wrong places, rambeling diatribes, etc.
Voter challenges - Ballots that are challenged based on the eligability of the voter to vote. Residency requirements, citizenship, registered to vote, qualified to vote by absentee, etc. Most of these challenges were made before the ballot envelop was opened.
Void Ballots - Ballots that have been declared void. Not sure who has this authority, but clearly if both county officials and both campaigns agreed that a particular ballot was void during the counting then it might have been classified as void. There has been very little reporting about how many ballots have been declared void so far. This number is usually calculated by taking the total number of ballots in a county and subtracting the number that were counted and the number that were challenged. After the set-aside ballots are counted and taken out of the equation, the numbers for void ballots should get more accurate.
Background numbers:
There are ten counties in the district:
Country, number of absentee ballots, % of election day vote for Murphy
Columbia, 984, 56.29%
Delaware, 290, 49.83%
Dutchess, 680, 51.51%
Essex, 173, 55.29%
Greene, 457, 44.43%
Otsego, 169, 48.76%
Rensselaer, 457, 48.49%
Saratoga, 1841, 45.85%
Warren, 1053, 55.76%
Washington, 622, 56.63%
So you can see, five counties went for Murphy and five went for Tedisco. Tedisco’s absentee strongholds are Saratoga and Greene counties, and Murphy’s are Columbia, Warren and Washington.
With all ten counties finished nearly all counting except for a few odds and ends and all of the challenged ballots, Murphy has gained 431 so far, to hold a 365 vote lead. A quick look at the results makes it clear that Tedisco has little chance. He may make some occasional gains as challenged ballots from Saratoga County get counted, but the challenged ballots in every other county appear to favor Murphy.
Murphy is doing much better with the absentee ballots counted so far than would be predicted by the election night rates in each county. It appears that Murphy supporters used absentee voting at a higher rate (about 5% higher) across the board, than Tedisco voters.
Other stories, commentary, news reports, etc.
Here’s some links to recent important news stories concerning the race:
http://www.elections.state.ny.us/
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
http://blogs.timesunion.com/...
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal...
http://www.timesunion.com/...
And link’s to other current or recent KOS diaries about the race:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
WHAT TO LOOK FOR TODAY
Tedisco may gain some votes as set aside ballots counting results come in from Saratoga county, but early unofficial reports indicate that he’ll gain fewer than 40 votes. We are also expecting set-aside results from Washington and maybe Otsego counties.
Today either 188 or 251 ballots will be examined, ruled on and counted in Judge Brand’s court. Those results may be reported tonight, tomorrow morning or later if they take more than a day to count.