Democratic candidate Scott Murphy’s lead in the NY-20 special election has expanded yet again, after some challenged ballots were counted in his stronghold of Warren County, and he now leads Republican candidate Jim Tedisco by 365 votes in the latest state numbers.
In the previous numbers on Friday, Murphy’s lead was at 273 votes, so he has now gained 91 votes in Warren, plus an additional one vote added in Essex County. Things just keep looking better and better for Murphy.
The ballots that were counted here, Warren Democratic chairman and local election official Bill Montfort explained to me, were votes that had been set aside when a campaign had objected, even if both the Democratic and Republican election commissioners thought they should be counted.
Tedisco’s campaign had challenged far more ballots in this county than the Murphy folks did, and it shows when the votes start to actually be tallied up.
It’s still theoretically possible that some of these votes could be un-counted later on — consistent with the judge’s orders, these ballots and their envelopes were put through the same copying process as U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s vote, which would allow a batch of disqualified absentees to be subtracted if the legal need arose.
