NY-23 Update: Owens Maintains Lead, As Absentees Begin To Be Counted

Here's a quick update on the NY-23 special election, in which Democrat Bill Owens defeated Conservative Doug Hoffman, and was sworn into office after Hoffman conceded, only to have Hoffman recently un-concede after late results showed him narrowing Owens' lead from around 5,000 votes to 3,000.

According to the Watertown Daily Times, the most up-to-date totals with partial absentee-ballot counts have Owens still ahead by 2,940 votes, with 5,570 absentees yet to be counted. If this were strictly a two-way race, Hoffman would need to take over 75% of the absentees to win -- and this is not a two-way race, and Hoffman is highly unlikely to get the margin he would need.

An important factor here is that Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava dropped out of the race and endorsed Owens, the weekend before the election. However, this was after the vast majority of absentee ballots would been sent in, and a significant number of absentees are for her. Out of 1,849 absentee ballots counted so far, Hoffman has picked up 833 votes, Owens 597, and Scozzafava 419 votes. Every vote for Scozzafava is effectively a wasted vote for our purposes, and has the effect of shrinking the available pool of votes for Hoffman.

Earlier today, Hoffman spokesman Rob Ryan told us: "We're monitoring the situation at all the Boards of Elections. It's a faint glimmer of light in the distance, but it's way in the distance."