I’ll tell you up front that I don’t have an updated tally based on the last three days of reviewing ballots. Judge DelConte is keeping that tally but it hasn’t been released to anyone and probably won’t be this week. What we do know is that the judge is continuing to plow through thousands of disputed ballots one at a time.
On Tuesday, Judge Scott DelConte reviewed 400 ballots coming from Broome County and will continue with Oneida County on Wednesday, deciding which will ultimately count in the final vote total. Right now, the candidates are separated by just 29 votes.
Much of the action yesterday surrounded questions about signatures on ballots:
Back to forensics here. Team Tenney argues a ballot should not count because of mismatched signatures, possibly from a name change, but Team Brindisi has an overly detailed argument about how the "L's" match, why a "B" is used in some previous signatures but not all. #NY22 pic.twitter.com/w8gloyY92H
— Andrew Donovan (@AndrewDonovan) January 5, 2021
Democrat Anthony Brindisi also added another high-profile lawyer to his team yesterday, his 6th lawyer:
Judge asks: "Are you going to be asking me to add more out-of-state lawyers to this case?"
"He hasn't made an application 'til this juncture."
Tenney has 2 or 3 attorneys
Brindisi has 5, now 6.#NY22— Andrew Donovan (@AndrewDonovan) January 5, 2021
Justice Scott DelConte begrudgingly approved Team Brindisi to add another attorney, @MarcEElias, who served as general counsel to @HillaryClinton’s presidential campaign in 2016 and is considered a leading recount and post-election attorney. #NY22 pic.twitter.com/8SZnSIQYei
— Andrew Donovan (@AndrewDonovan) January 5, 2021
After that, the ballot by ballot counting continued:
Justice DelConte is on “BR-358,” the label given to the 358th challenged ballot from Broome County. This a slow ballot-by-ballot process. There are more than 400 challenged ballots from voters in Oneida County, which were scheduled to be reviewed today, but likely tomorrow. #NY22 pic.twitter.com/O4rzweougM
— Andrew Donovan (@AndrewDonovan) January 5, 2021
The most important information is what we don't have: how ballot rulings change the total.
Judge hasn't made many overt rulings, but campaigns have withdrawn many challenges. Pool of votes that can change total is dwindling, but not insignificant with 29-vote difference. #NY22 https://t.co/zcGC4z7VMy
— Andrew Donovan (@AndrewDonovan) January 5, 2021
Meanwhile in Washington, the office for the eventual winner of NY-22 stands empty:
Since it’s not clear if @RepBrindisi or @ClaudiaTenney will represent #NY22, Brindisi’s nameplate was removed from outside his office and the inside was cleaned out. pic.twitter.com/WquHvHK6Z7
— Andrew Donovan (@AndrewDonovan) January 5, 2021
This morning the counting resumed with a focus on the disputed ballots from Oneida County:
"Begin with ON-1."
1,797 affidavits and 30+ absentee ballots were initially rejected by Oneida County BOE.#NY22 recanvass resulted in 700 of those being reconsidered and given to Brindisi or Tenney. That's why Tenney leads by 29.
444 sent to court for judicial review. pic.twitter.com/K11aneR0BT
— Andrew Donovan (@AndrewDonovan) January 6, 2021
Votes that the judge finds don’t stand up to scrutiny are removed from the total. Both sides are losing some of these so it’s not clear where the total stands.
Judge: "ON-26 will not count and as a result there will be a tally change."
I'll wait for court to issue formal rulings on each ballot and BOEs to tabulate new totals, but it appears that an already-counted ballot will be ruled invalid. @ClaudiaTenney will be deducted one. #NY22 https://t.co/5sFCtbexrW
— Andrew Donovan (@AndrewDonovan) January 6, 2021
…and there goes a vote for @RepBrindisi. The vote declines are basically a wash.
It won't be accurate for anyone to keep a total tally based on court proceedings. #NY22 https://t.co/t7mDsKIfYF
— Andrew Donovan (@AndrewDonovan) January 6, 2021
At one point, Claudia Tenney (or someone running her social media account) criticized the coverage:
As I explained to the congresswoman, I'm not tabulating a ruling-by-ruling change in the total tally based on court discussion.
It might be interesting for Twitter, but it risks inaccuracies and is irrelevant with more than 400 ballots still to be ruled on. #NY22 https://t.co/e4Ls4Lksc8
— Andrew Donovan (@AndrewDonovan) January 6, 2021
That’s about as dramatic as things have gotten in the past couple days. The plan is to have all the ballots from Oneida County reviewed by Thursday. Friday the judge will hear legal arguments from both sides. Those arguments will play a role in determining which ballots are added or subtracted from the unofficial total. Then next week those ballots will be reviewed and added to the count by the County Boards of Election. If everything stays on schedule we should have an official winner by Tuesday or Wednesday next week.
However, I’m certain both camps are keeping a careful tally of the vote changes as they happen so we could get another leak about who is in the lead tomorrow or Friday. After the debacle in Georgia last night I’m really hoping the GOP can hold on to this one.
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