The latest score in the NY-20 special election, as absentee ballots are being counted, has Democratic candidate Scott Murphy ahead of Republican candidate Jim Tedisco by 178 votes, up from a 167-vote lead this morning.
The counties are either completely done or almost done with counting up the votes, and this stage of the process could be finished up tomorrow.
The next step will be on Monday, when review and potential counting begins for the 1,200 absentee-ballot envelopes that have been challenged, and thus kept out of the count for now. A key ruling yesterday by Judge James V. Brands makes it likely that the vast majority of these challenges will be overruled, and the votes will be counted.
From the available evidence it looks like the Tedisco camp challenged more ballots than Murphy’s people did — but not all counties have divulged the breakdown, most notably Saratoga County with its 740 total challenges. If this general assumption were to turn out to be correct, then the most probable outcome would be that Murphy will pick up additional net votes.
