Judge orders votes retallied in N.Y. House race with 12-vote margin
By Mike DeBonis
Dec. 8, 2020 at 2:41 p.m. EST
A New York state judge Tuesday ordered ballots retallied in one of the closest House races in history, which could leave the question of who will represent the 22nd Congressional District potentially unsettled into the new year.
New York State Supreme Court Justice Scott J. DelConte ordered officials in eight counties to recanvass ballots after a Monday hearing in which, according to media reports, he expressed frustration with lawyers for both incumbent Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D) and his Republican opponent, former congresswoman Claudia Tenney.
The decision to order a districtwide review, however, is good news for Brindisi, who currently trails by 12 votes under the most recent districtwide count. His lawyers had hoped to limit recounts to certain absentee ballot disputes, but DelConte ordered a full recanvass — wholly rejecting Tenney’s request that he simply order the election’s certification, setting aside alleged errors and newly found ballots.
That means each county must reexamine thousands of ballots anew, including potentially hundreds of provisional ballots and disputed absentee ballots that were not handled by elections officials according to state law.
The process, which is likely to include further court challenges, could take weeks to conclude — raising the possibility that neither Brindisi nor Tenney, who held the seat from 2017 to 2019, will be sworn in Jan. 3.
“It is more important that this election is decided right, than that it is decided right now,” DelConte wrote.
Brindisi called the decision “a win for the people of the 22nd District.”
“This margin is too small and the stakes too high to rush to judgment,” he said in a statement. “We owe it to voters, our democracy, and each other to let this process move forward without attacking each other, promoting conspiracy theories, or fanning the flames of division.”
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-new-york-election-democrats/2020/12/08/6c9b818c-38dd-11eb-bc68-96af0daae728_story.html
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