NY-22 race could be decided by Christmas

The last uncertified House race in the country, NY-22, is scheduled for a full week of attempts to recount contested votes. Justice Scott DelConte has various counties working on the new counts through Friday, at which point there will likely be hundreds of disputed ballots that he will personally decide whether or not to count. If we’re lucky the winner might be known before Christmas.

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State Supreme Court Justice Scott J. DelConte ordered all eight counties in the district to correct counting errors and take another look at more than 2,000 disputed absentee and affidavit ballots cast in the election…

He asked election officials to write in ink on each ballot the reasons for the objections. Those disputed ballots will likely be reviewed in his court next week.

DelConte was critical of election officials in Oswego, Oneida, and Madison counties for losing track of the reasons why the candidates disputed absentee ballots, and why election officials rejected hundreds of affidavit ballots submitted at polling sites…

DelConte has asked lawyers for both campaigns to meet with him at 1 p.m. Friday to determine the next steps in the case. The judge will likely be asked to rule on the validity of hundreds of ballots that could determine the winner of the election.

State law required election officials to write objections on the ballots in ink. That law wasn’t followed so a bunch of the objections were stuck to ballots on sticky notes, some of which fell off in transit to the Judge’s office. That’s how we got “Stickygate.”

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As a result of the general incompetence of these counties, Democratic incumbent Anthony Brindisi is basically getting a do-over, a chance to have Justice DelConte make all the decisions about disputed ballots rather than local election officials. His camp preferred that to the alternative which was to have the vote certified with Republican Claudia Tenney winning by 12 votes.

In addition to representatives from both campaigns, a delegation from the House will be on hand to observe the process. Tenney told Fox News yesterday she was concerned this delegation was getting aggressive:

“If the judge follows the legal process I think we should prevail,” Tenney said on Sunday. “But what’s happening now, it’s so close that Nancy Pelosi, the current House speaker, has sent lawyers who are supposed to be from the House administration and they’re supposed to be in an observing role, not anything more than that, but it looks like they’re getting very aggressive.”

“They had asked the court to have cameras and electronic equipment so that they could really work on these ballots in a way that we don’t think it is fair and that we think could prejudice the opening of these new ballots,” she continued.

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The delegation from the House is reportedly bipartisan but Tenney seems concerned her race is going to wind up like Iowa-2 where Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks won by 6 votes but Democrat Rita Hart is challenging the results by appealing directly to the House. My guess is that’s exactly what happens if Brindisi doesn’t come out ahead after this reshuffle.

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