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Election Purgatory In Ny-20

April 10th, 2009 at 10:01 am Tom Qualtere | 10 Comments |

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Get comfortable. The final results of the special congressional race in upstate New York between Jim Tedisco (R) and Scott Murphy (D) aren’t going to be known for several weeks, possibly longer. As the absentee ballots continue to be received, opened, counted, challenged, etc., Leigh Hornbeck sums up the increasingly tense and tedious situation perfectly in yesterday’s Albany Times Union.

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10 Comments so far ↓

  • krove // Apr 10, 2009 at 11:11 am

    Tedisco is challenging EVERY out of district Democrat ballot for no reason at all. Murphy’s lawyer asked for EVERY vote to be counted and has hardly challenged any Tedisco ballots. What does that tell you about voter suppression?Meanwhile this sort of tactic is showing in the polling.Today’s research 2000 poll.PRESIDENT OBAMA 68 (67) 29 (30) +2 PELOSI: 36 (35) 46 (45) +0 REID: 34 (33) 49 (50) +2 McCONNELL: 23 (22) 56 (55) +0 BOEHNER: 18 (16) 58 (57) +1 CONGRESSIONAL DEMS: 43 (41) 51 (52) +3 CONGRESSIONAL GOPS: 18 (17) 68 (69) +2 DEMOCRATIC PARTY: 51 (49) 42 (42) +2 REPUBLICAN PARTY: 26 (25) 66 (65) +0

  • krove // Apr 10, 2009 at 11:16 am

    Some more interesting stuff from the same poll.One thing the Republicans continue to flail about with is an attempt to link Democrats to Nancy Pelosi and “San Francisco values.” Skipping the idea of what they really mean, how do Americans really feel about San Francisco? That’s something we thought we’d ask, instead of assuming we know. We also asked about a few other places Republicans and conservatives like to fund-raise off of. FAVORABLE UNFAVORABLE DON’T KNOW SAN FRANCISCO 65 24 11 NEW YORK: 66 26 8 EUROPE: 63 29 8 FRANCE: 61 32 7 Isn’t it interesting that the unfavorables for Obama, San Francisco, New York, France and Europe are so similar? That’s the know-nothing hard core that makes for news but can’t win national elections. But hey, if Republicans want to shoot themselves in the foot again that’s up to them.Maybe we should include cheese, French fries, endives and arugula in our next poll?Meanwhile the polls this week, particularly Pew and CBS/NY Times, show continued support for Obama’s policies and not just personal popularity

  • bloodstar // Apr 10, 2009 at 12:12 pm

    krove:Focus on the topic at hand :) I could care less about the grand strategies. that’s for other articles. I’m curious if there is an official total break down of challenges by county that can go along with the results returned so far. That will give a better sense of what the final results are going to be.

  • krove // Apr 10, 2009 at 2:30 pm

    The lead continues to seesaw in NY-20, as absentee ballots are counted across the district.At the moment, Democrat Scott Murphy leads Republican Jim Tedisco by 49 votes. That is liable to change any minute.Columbia County has provided their latest numbers to TPM, showing Murphy picking up another 15 net votes, on a 99-42 margin, compared to the 55-13 in the state’s current tally of absentees from here. In addition, the Albany Times Union reports that Murphy has picked up 26 votes, an 88-62 margin, in Essex County.So as of right now, Scott Murphy leads by 49 votes — though there are still plenty of ballots left to count. (Late Update: Murphy’s newest lead is 46 votes.)The Tedisco stronghold of Saratoga County, which has over a quarter of the absentee ballots that have been returned, has not yet reported anything, and neither have the pro-Murphy counties of Warren and Washington, which combined have just slightly less returned absentees than Saratoga, and other counties are in various stages of progress. One obstacle to an accurate count is that the Tedisco campaign continues to challenge seemingly legal ballots left, right and center:One other thing that clouds the picture is that the campaigns have had the ability to challenge absentee envelopes before they are opened, setting them aside pending a later ruling by the judge in the contest. The Times Union reports that Essex County has had 31 challenges, compared to 150 votes counted. And it’s even more stark in Columbia: 83 challenges in the county’s list — which a Tedisco volunteer attorney said have come more from the Republicans — compared to 141 votes counted. As TAP reports, Republicans think Columbia County will “make or break” their efforts here. So it’s little surprise that they’ve gone gung-ho with ballot challenges: they want to keep as many Murphy votes from being counted as possible.

  • LDAV45 // Apr 11, 2009 at 5:11 pm

    Yes voter suppression is a concern and the Republicans are forewarned and forearmed due to the joke of a race with Franken and Coleman.

  • Bulldoglover100 // Apr 11, 2009 at 9:13 pm

    The really sad part of all of this is that the people in these states go without representation….The Dems feel Gore was robbed by Bush, the GOP feels it is being robbed by Franken and now we get to look forward to yet another court case in this race. Something is not right with this system that it happens.Popular vote should rule and all votes should count. Regardless of who wins, if the person with the most votes wins? The our country wins because the majority of the people have spoken.

  • krove // Apr 12, 2009 at 6:07 am

    LDAV45.I agree The Republicans conduct in the Coleman race is not good for the State or for Democracy.

  • ireign // Apr 14, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    Coleman is not to blame for the Minnesota predicament. If states just adopted the logical policy that they were not going to look into voter intent but analyze only absentee votes that were properly cast than we wouldn’t be in this mess. The fact is Coleman won both the initial count and recount. Unfortunately, Minnesota law allows for courts to look into voter intent. When you have this policy, you are going to have a circus. I think at this point, Coleman should concede. Not because he lost the vote on election day, which is questionable, at best but because he has little chance at winning the judicial vote because Al Franken’s lawyers did a better job.

  • bloodstar // Apr 15, 2009 at 12:30 pm

    This is what you’d consider Ominous (with a capital ‘O’):For example, Murphy in Columbia County leads among absentees by a raw-vote margin of 250-127, or 66.4%-33.6% — and that’s with 194 ballots having been challenged by Tedisco, compared to 19 by Murphy, and one of them challenged by both.How in the world Tedisco is viewing a 10:1 ratio of challenges as reasonable makes no sense, let alone challenging the ballot of Kirsten Gillibrand. I understand the desire to work for the win, but really? I think this stretches credibility a little bit.

  • rizvisa1 // Apr 16, 2009 at 6:47 am

    reign 4/14/2009 1:48 PM The fact is Coleman won both the initial count and recount. =================== there are facts and then there are fact. Coleman was not ahead in recount. During hand recount votes were challenged. After resolution of those challenges by 5 member panel that included SC of MN (appointed by Pawlenty) , Franken was ahead by 49. Franken expaneded his lead to 200 odd votes once absentee ballots were counted. He further expanded his lead to 312 when coleman took his case to court and as result 400 votes were opened that again broke heavily for franken.

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