The counting of the absentee ballots is set to begin today in the NY-20 special election, where Republican candidate Jim Tedisco and Democrat Scott Murphy are in a near-tie that now hinges on the nearly 7,000 absentees. But as it turns out, we shouldn’t expect a quick verdict.
Whether the counting processes would happen at all had been the subject of some litigation on Monday, with the Tedisco campaign arguing that the counties should wait until April 13, the final deadline for all the military and overseas ballots to arrive in the mail under an extension that had been worked out with the federal Justice Department. But a judge sided with the Murphy camp, ruling that the counting should commence right after the deadline for all the other absentees had passed, which occurred yesterday.
The counties are now going through the process of identifying the ballots and approving them for opening, which should be a time-consuming process. For example, Washington County’s deputy Republican commissioner Linda Falkouski explained to TPM that the county probably won’t actually count any ballots today.
“They [the commissioners] had other things they wanted to do,” said Falkouski, “like compare signatures, make sure signatures are the same, that nobody voted at the polls and by absentee ballot.” Counting won’t happen unless they get done with the preliminary steps quickly, which Falkouski said is not likely to occur.
And in Essex County, there was until yesterday afternoon a real disagreement over whether they would end up counting any ballots at all.
“At least yesterday,” said Democratic Commissioner David Mace, “the Republican side was taking the position that the mere photocopying of the front and back of the absentees, making photocopies for the two campaign crews, the lawyer crews here, was starting the canvassing, and that they didn’t have to actually start counting the ballots today.”
Essex Republican commissioner Lewis Sanders told TPM that the disagreement was resolved yesterday, and that there will be at least some ballots counted today — but it will take a while, and won’t be finished today. “Lawyers from both sides, they have the right to observe,” said Sanders, “and if there’s any question — like a ruling I might make or a ruling the other commissioner might make — it takes a long time. It slows the process up. I know both sides of the aisle will want to look at every absentee ballot.”
“You wouldn’t believe, there’s a lot of people watching the process,” Sanders also added. “It is what it is.”
The slowness and uncertainty of the process appears to apply elsewhere, too. A staffer at Saratoga County explained that the timeline will be difficult to determine. The first steps of approving and opening the ballots began at 10 a.m., and it’s not clear yet when the numbers will be coming out either — whether numbers will be announced as ballots are physically counted, or whether the county would hold off until everything is in.
(Note: Counties in New York have Republican and Democratic election commissioners and deputies, who work together and must agree on decisions about the numbers, procedures, etc.)
