Murphy Currently Ahead By 35 Votes -- Plus More Fun With Ballot Challenges
The latest official numbers from NY-20 now show that Democrat Scott Murphy is currently ahead by 35 votes, as he picks up votes in the absentees that have so far made up for his 68-vote deficit in the Election Day machine counts.
Here's where it gets fun: In Warren County, a Murphy stronghold that overall went 55.8%-44.2% for him on Election Night, Tedisco has technically picked up four votes, 34-30, with six out of 70 precincts' absentees counted. However, as county Democratic Party chairman Bill Montfort (who is also a county election official) told me, the Tedisco campaign has challenged about 20 ballots, out of around 25 total challenges, keeping those votes out of the count for now.
"I would just think that once it's decided that these should be counted," said Montfort, "then Murphy is gonna pick up 20."
In these individual precincts, Murphy won by 51.5%-48.5% on Election Night, compared to a Tedisco edge of 53.1%-46.9% in the ballots so far. But if we added 20 votes to Murphy and five to Tedisco, we get a Murphy edge of 50-39, or 56.2%-43.8%, ahead of the curve for these precincts.
As I reported today, the ballot challenges going on here -- and thus far, significantly more of them have come from the Republicans, trying to keep Dem votes out -- could be seriously distorting the final result, if most of the challenges are ultimately withdrawn or overruled.
As for the other absentee votes that are actually in the can, we're generally seeing a continuation of the trend yesterday, with Murphy doing mostly better in the absentees relative to the home counties' and precincts' Election Night returns.
The newest precincts in Columbia County gave Murphy 54.3%-45.7 on Election Night, but the absentees are a 44-29 margin, or 60.3%-39.7% (The county overall was 56.3%-42.7% on Election Night, and 70.2%-29.8% in all the absentees tallied so far, with a whole lot of challenges from the GOP). Rensselaer County voted 51.5%-48.5% for Tedisco on Election Night, but the absentees have come in 221-211 for Murphy, or 51.2%-48.8%. Dutchess County was 51.5%-48.5% for Murphy on Election Night, while the absentees so far are 139-119 for Murphy, or 53.9%-46.1%, with more Republican-launched challenges than Dem challenges.
The one genuine exception so far is Otsego County, which only cast less than two percent of the total ballots in the race. They were for Tedisco 51.2%-48.8% on Election Night, but the absentees have come in at 54.1%-45.9%. And the challenges here weren't that much more from Tedisco than from Murphy, either.
Again, some of these counties aren't finished, and the military and overseas votes could shift these margins (though so far only about 400 have been returned, out of about 1,900 originally sent out, and the deadline for them to arrive is this Monday). And of course we're still waiting on the Tedisco stronghold of Saratoga County and the Murphy strongholds of Washington County, which haven't reported anything, plus more results from Warren.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Tedisco wants to be ahead after the absentee count (minus his challenges) so Murphy will "steal" the election when most of the challenges are thrown out by the court. Once again the meme will be "Democrats use the courts to steal elections".
I think the Dems might want to prop up and create some form of leadership on the Right. Have a leader with something to lose, a leader that could be held accountable and thus might tamp down these scorched earth tactics.
April 10, 2009 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is TheDisco related to Notso Nimble Norman?
April 10, 2009 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
This has become all about Steele. If Tedisco gets beat, Steele loses face. Especially in a district that, given the circumstances, and the resources poured in here, should have been a slam dunk for the Reps. The Reps are counting on NY-20 as a touchstone for attacking Obama and his activist policies. If its taken away, they are even lower than whale shit. And they know it.
Screw them. This will be Minn Franken/Coleman all over again if the Reps have anything to say about it.
April 10, 2009 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Murphy wins, let's rub it in for good measure.
April 10, 2009 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
WHY IS MURPHY DOING UNIFORMLY BETTER WITH ABSENTEES?
I do not know the answer to my question, but I will suggest one.
Murphy's campaign manager just finished managing Gillibrand's re-election in this District and has access to the absentee voter turnout organization from last fall PLUS whatever is available from the NY State Democrats and allied groups--unions, NARAL, etc. Gillibrand's opponent did not run much of a campaign and I doubt if there was much of an absentee voter effort plus there was none from the NY state Republicans or McCain in this district. You cannot put together an absentee voter campaign over night if you start essentially from scratch. Murphy had the advantage of being able to reactivate a solid organizational effort--and that can be done overnight when it comes just a few months later. [The Iowa Democratic Party maintains on standby status an absentee and regular GOTV organization in every precinct which is why they run 5 points ahead of the polls in special elections and usually 2-3 points ahead of the polls in general elections.]
Murphy and his allies had up to date lists and computer disks ready. Tedisco ran a very sloppy campaign and used a bunch of state Assembly staffers who only know how to win virtually unconstested races. It is obvious from the absentee vote reports thus far that he did not have any real absentee voter organization. The RNC has been crowing for years about their "Voter Vault" organization; these absentee results suggest that they have let it atrophy.
This is my surmise.
April 11, 2009 6:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry if I haven't been paying adequate attention to this process, but I don't understand why the campaigns are able to challenge absentee ballots. Is this the normal process in NY state elections during the initial count? In Minnesota the campaigns were only able to challenge absentee ballots during the recount phase as absentee ballots previously rejected by election judges were reconsidered per rules issued by the MN Supreme Court.
April 11, 2009 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
State laws differ. In NY, the Republicans filed suit the day of the election before the polls closed and got an order from a judge impounding all absentee and provisional ballots. As I understand it, NY law says that absentee ballots cannot be counted until after the polls close. In fact they cannot be counted, I believe, until about a week after the election since NY will count ballots with a post mark the day before the election but they must be received no more than seven days later. [In this election, as a rsult of a Federal court order, military, overseas ballots have until Monday, April 13 to be received and will be counted starting on April 14--I may be off by one day on this.] (Some/many/most states allow absentees to be counted the day of the election before polls close so long as it is after the last mail delivery; these states require that absentee ballots be received on the day of the election or earlier.)
My understanding is that the Republican move is not all that unusual in NY where a very close election is expected and is also done by Democrats in appropriate circumstances. In general when absentees are opened and counted all parties are entitled to have challengers in the room and they can challenge ballots as they are prepared to be opened.
There have been reports (see archive here and at The Albany Project blog) that the R's have surveyed the absentees and asked for whom they voted thereby providing a list of Murphy (and Tedisco) absentee voters. It also appears that Tedisco is extensively challenging purported Murphy voters on grounds that are are at best spurious and have been the subject of much NY litigation to the point that the issue is well settled. That is, those who work in NYC but have a weekend home in the 20th District and vote there (20th District) are being challenged for not being residents of the 20th District for voting purposes. It is my understanding that under NY law it is well settled that these folks are legally registered in the 20th District so long as they are not registered to vote some place else. There is no Federal issue--it is purely a matter of NY law. In fact as a matter of US law, residency is very easy to establish and a state is barred from establishing much in the way of barriers to residency.
What Tedisco is doing is game-playing and trying to get the fools in the media to think there is something nefarious happening. The challenged ballots are not counted initially, but after the first run through, as I understand the process, so this inflates Tedisco's running vote totals. They will be assisted, no doubt, by the media fools as well as the Republican fellow travellers at Faux (Fox) News.
April 11, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, David, for your most helpful reply to my question. I truly appreciate it.
April 11, 2009 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR TEDISCO!!!
!!TEDISCOMENTUM™!!!
April 11, 2009 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, look who the cat drug in. Excellent news indeed.
April 12, 2009 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink