Yesterday evening, PolitickerNY reported that Democrat Scott Murphy had once again pulled ahead of Republican Jim Tedisco by 83 votes in their race to become NY-20’s next congressman. This news came after official tallies showed Jim trailing by 13, ahead by 12, stuck in a weekend tie, and then leading by 97 votes all within the past week. It’s no wonder that Tedisco political advisor Matt Dill has begun referring to this race as “a coin flip.”
In accordance with state Supreme Court Judge James Brands in Dutchess County, the re-canvassing of the district’s voting machines will continue throughout today. He also ruled that the counting of paper ballots can begin tomorrow, a move that favors the Democrats. In his words:
The whole premise of the consent decree was to ensure that those abroad who want to exercise their right to vote are not disenfranchised by an artificially short turn around time with their ballots. In order to have the votes counted in an orderly fashion, it would make sense that the canvassing of those absentee ballots other than those particularly identified should commence on April 8, 2009 rather than sit in storage for another six days.
The Albany Times Union reported today that “John Ciampoli, a lawyer for the state GOP, and James Walsh, who represents Tedisco, said it would be better to wait and count all the absentees together.” Walsh echoed the Tedisco campaign’s sentiment when he told the paper, “I don’t think quick justice is good justice, and I don’t think quick counting is good counting.”
Hans A. von Spakovsky has done a very commendable job detailing the potential disenfranchisement of military ballots that will no doubt turn the election around in Tedisco’s favor if counted in full.
The most recent turnaround came yesterday after Washington County’s machines were re-canvassed and ultimately gave Murphy an increase of 180 votes. Today, Dill expects Essex County’s re-canvassing to boost Tedisco by 100 votes of his own and mildly anticipates both Greene and Otsego Counties to add to Jim’s total as well.
The dramatic shifts in results thus far have been, Dill said, a result of “human error.” Typical Election Day mistakes reported to have occurred once the polls closed include: misread print-outs from the electric ballots, miscalled numbers off the receipts, misheard numbers as they were called out by poll watchers, incorrectly transcribed numbers onto the official board of elections sheet, and even illegible handwriting (i.e.: a ‘3’ could’ve been misread as an ‘8,’ etc.).
In a race with more than 150,000 votes cast, that less than 100 votes will likely determine the winner makes this one of the closest special elections in history. Both sides are obviously equipped with what Dill calls “legal dream teams…the best lawyers in the state.” All donations to the Tedisco campaign are now going straight to a so-called “Integrity Fund” to pay the attorneys’ and their research teams. Much of Tedisco’s campaign staff, including Dill, has returned to their regular roles working for Tedisco in the State Assembly, of which last Friday Jim stepped down as Minority Leader.
“It’s up to the lawyers now,” Dill concluded, “If they do their job…Jim should still be up by about 100 [votes] when this is all over.”
***UPDATE: PoitickerNY reported at 5:07 PM EST (4/7/09) that Scott Murphy’s 83-vote lead, announced Monday evening, was actually the result of a “misreport” by Saratoga County election officials. Jim Tedisco is now leading his opponent once again by 17 votes.
21 responses so far
1 krove // Apr 7, 2009 at 11:56 am
Nate Silver has this take.
The New York State Board of Elections has a lot of data (.pdf) out on absentee ballots in the special election in that state’s 20th Congressional District, which will be vital in breaking the virtual tie between Scott Murphy and Jim Tedisco.
One thing that seems fairly clear is that there tend to be a relatively higher proportion of absentee ballots returned in counties where Murphy performed well on election night. For example, Columbia County, where Murphy won 56.3 percent of the of the vote last week, accounted for 9.8 percent of ballots on election night, but accounts for 15.3 percent of absentees. Conversely, Saratoga County, which is a Tedisco stronghold, represented 36 percent of ballots on election night but only 27.2 percent of absentees:
If I simply apportion the absentee ballots based on the distribution of the election day vote in each county, I show Murphy gaining a net of 173 ballots during the absentee counting phase. In addition, as Michael Barone has noted, although a plurality of the absentee ballot returns are Republican, they are somewhat less Republican than registration in the district as a whole.
If Murphy is ahead or tied at the start of counting the absentee ballots then he should be 200 ahead at the end. The overseas ballots will not be enough to counter this.
If the GOP loose this election with 70,000 voter registration advantage against an unknown opponent then they really are toast
2 ChristianMiller // Apr 7, 2009 at 12:07 pm
krove, I fail to see how absentee ballots would reflect the same trends as the districts they are absent from. Wouldn’t the fact that these people are away for work, vacation or something else, be a more significant factor of itself?
And how does it bode badly for Republicans if this was formerly a D seat? It means to me that Republicans are gaining.
3 krove // Apr 7, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Franco, why would they not. If a certain percentage voted in person surely that should carry over to the absentee ballots.
To your second point. The district is a red one the GOP has a 70,000 voter registration advantage. So it should go GOP every time. Gillibrand was running as a DINO last time out against a corrupted Republican. In other words she was lucky to win.
So this time Tedesco a well known GOP candidate was against a new unknown Democrat running as a Liberal Democrat.
So Tedesco should have walked it. He didn’t so what does that say?
For more on the methodology to produce the result of the absentee ballots see. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
4 bloodstar // Apr 7, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Ok, this is perhaps one of the most inane sentences I’ve seen in a long time: “Its up to the lawyers now, Dill concluded, If they do their jobJim should still be up by about 100 [votes] when this is all over.”
so, if Tedisco wins by 500 they *didn’t* do their job? what if he loses by 300? The lawyers should be *irrelevant* to the entire process.
Now mind you, they aren’t, and of course Murphy has his own Lawyers ready to advocate for his side as well. And the best hope is that the lawyers cancel each other out. The race is effectively a tie, and really whoever wins now is more symbolic than material to the overall makeup of Congress. So let’s just make sure this is done right.
5 bloodstar // Apr 7, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Franco – To be blunt, The District went to the Democrats in 2006 for several reasons, and if you’re not at least passingly familiar with the recents evens in NY-20 then take the time to read up on the events that lead up to the election of Gillibrand. For your reading ease, here’s a wiki (yeah, I know but it’s a start and you can always look at the external links at the bottom to view external information)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_20th_congressional_district_election,_2006
6 ChristianMiller // Apr 7, 2009 at 1:47 pm
krove, Because the absentee category is a MORE specific category than a residential area within a Congressional district.
Those who require an absentee ballot are more likely to be in the military and/or are more likely to be wealthier, either working a job away from their State (employed) or living in a second home in Florida, for example, both of those factors skew Republican. Therefore, which particular neighborhood they are from is not as important a factor than the fact that they are absentees in the first place. Capice? This is my problem with polls, statistics and lazy thinking.
Voter registration doesn’t tell the whole story, since many are independent and are simply unregistered Democrats.
The fact is the seat was held by a Democrat (and one who was sufficiently “democratic” to be picked for the US Senate by Democrats)
Bloodstar – from the link:”Both Spitzer and Clinton won all the counties in the 20th district.” That tells me they are Democrats through and through.
Tedisco, in my opinion ran a lousy campaign, like so many Republicans are doing nowadays.
7 Bulldoglover100 // Apr 7, 2009 at 2:48 pm
All I see from this article is more “Wish in one hand…….” by the Republicans and another expensive fight that makes our party look bad if he loses to Murphy….what does the GOP plan to do? Take every case to court that we lose? and spend millions of dollars in this economic crisis? That helps us? that pulls in the Independents that voted at most 60% for democrats in 2008?
There are now only 24% of the American public willing to identify with the Republican brand and we are so busy running off the Independents that I am ready for the new party that Newt is talking about because
my faith in this one being able to govern itself is almost gone.
As for the inane remark that the military will vote for Jim? Think again and go to Gallup and check how many military ballots actually went to the Republicans in 2006…it is pretty evenly divided and will this will in factual probility be the case in this race too. Deal with reality because this magical thinking our party seems intent on is driving us farther and farther down the road.
8 krove // Apr 7, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Franco, Well we will see over the next day or so who is right.
If you don’t think that this is a natural GOP seat then I am not sure where that is coming from.
9 sinz54 // Apr 7, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Franco: The national GOP organization poured a lot of money into this race. Steele really wanted to win it. And the conservative blogs, like RedState.com, were soliciting contributions from their members too.
So having put themselves on the line, the Republicans can’t now claim that it really doesn’t matter much. It sure mattered to them over the last couple of months.
10 ireign // Apr 7, 2009 at 9:26 pm
The political pundit class has stated unless either side won big that it wasn’t a harbinger of things to come. That said, Tedisco should have would have won by a comfortable margin. I think it says more about the campaign that he and the national party ran than anything else but we will see. If Tedisco pulls out a victory, it will be spun as a victory for the GOP brand but I think even a narrow victory is a slight disappointment.
11 mlindroo // Apr 8, 2009 at 2:13 am
I agree with ireign, sinz54 and krove … this district ought to have been a slam dunk considering the vast resources poured into the Tedisco campaign by GOP activists and strategists.
Markos Moulitsas writes (THE HILL):
“Republicans were certainly invested in the race. The RNC spent $280,000 compared to $10,000 from the Democratic National Committee, and the NRCC invested $871,681 to the DCCCs $591,591. Outside forces favoring Tedisco dumped $2.06 million into the race, compared to just $1.23 million from pro-Murphy groups. And Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, among others, lent their fundraising heft to their partys candidate. Given the money, the candidate and the district, the election shouldve been a slam-dunk.”
MARCU$
12 ChristianMiller // Apr 8, 2009 at 3:56 am
I don’t care how much money they spent. In fact they spent a great deal of it badly. I heard countless commercials on WABC talk radio during Rush’s show – they can’t be cheap, and they were pathetically lame spots produced by political automatons.
Moreover the spot I heard tried to take advantage of class warfare and phony populism around the AIG bonuses. That soured me on the guy right away. Had I lived in his district, I would not have been particularly motivated to vote for him. I’m sick of these poll-driven empty suits. He probably is better than the Democrat, but I am also sick of being held hostage by these men – I simply don’t trust them. Think Arlen Spector.
Now, the fact that the entire Congressional district – every county- voted for Hillary and Spitzer in 2006 tells me a lot. How is this a slam dunk?
We have an individual race and with individual conditions and naturally people on both side would like to spin it as a national trend. The fact that so many here are prone to believe the Democrat spin is revealing.
The RNC is ossified and is filled with people who don’t know what they believe, they just know Democrats are bad but they don’t really know why -or are afraid to say.
13 krove // Apr 8, 2009 at 6:18 am
Lets say Tedisco wins this by 312 votes. I guess the Republican Senators will demand Murphy takes the count all the way to the Supreme court and ties the election up for years!
Like they have with the Coleman fight. I hold my breath.
14 sinz54 // Apr 8, 2009 at 7:22 am
krove: I think you have it backwards. Tedisco is the Republican and Murphy is the Democrat.
15 sinz54 // Apr 8, 2009 at 7:24 am
Franco: May I remind you that to get a majority in Congress again, the GOP has to win seats in districts that are currently held by Democrats. If NY-20 doesn’t have good pickup potential for the GOP, can you name some other districts in which the GOP can take the seats away from the Dems?
16 krove // Apr 8, 2009 at 7:24 am
Sinz, no I have it exactly right. If The GOP senators are true to their principles they will call for the Democrat to tie this up in the courts for years.
17 krove // Apr 8, 2009 at 7:27 am
meanwhile back in Chicago the score on the special election is
With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Quigley had 69 percent to 24 percent for Republican Rosanna Pulido and 7 percent for Green Party candidate Matt Reichel (not a bad showing for a Green).
So with the GOP polling at 24% in the country Pulido could not win 1% of independents to her. With even the greens getting 7% which maybe is the right leaning independent vote?
18 krove // Apr 8, 2009 at 4:23 pm
First county in in NY-20
In Delaware County, the first county where absentee votes have been completely counted to date, Scott Murphy won the absentee ballot count by 20 votes. On Election Day, Tedisco won Delaware County. There is a Republican registration advantage of 63,000 to 48,000 there.
19 krove // Apr 8, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Some more results in……..Plus 83 for Murphy so far…
Murphy campaign spokesman Ryan Rudominer said that after Deleware County finished its count, Murphy had gained 20 votes. Tom Wade, chairman of the Rensselaer County Democratic Party, said that Murphy gained 10 total votes there, with 49 ballots unopened. (These include ballots from overseas citizens and military voters, which cannot be opened until April 13, and some ballots that were found objectionable by campaign staffers and laid aside.)
Virginia Martin, the Democratic elections commissioner in Columbia County, said Murphy gained 40 votes there today. That tally only includes absentee ballots – not emergency or affidavit ballots – and comprised seven election districts.
David Gamache, the Republican elections commissioner in Dutchess County, said Murphy picked up 13 votes there after counting ballots in the towns of Pine Plains, Amenia and Clinton.
20 bloodstar // Apr 9, 2009 at 2:19 pm
doing some quick back of the napkin calculations, it looks like Murphy is running about 3 – 4 percent better in the Absentee than in the main election, for example in Greene County which Tedisco won with 55.6% of the vote, the Absentee ballots (of which 206 out of 457 returned have been counted) are only favoring Tedisco by 52.2%
Tedisco is going to need a MASSIVE return in Saratoga if the returns in the other counties continue like this. That or a massive number of military ballots coming in at the last minute. Beyond that, he needs to win them by large margins, because right now Murphy is on pace to gain 331 votes from the other counties (roughly).
21 krove // Apr 9, 2009 at 4:31 pm
bloodstar, Please don’t tell Franco. He will not accept these numbers even though they are fact. It’s better than that for Murphy as Tedisco’s lawyers are contesting every Democrat ballot from out of district (dual home owners). So these will go before a judge to decide.
This will only delay the result not alter it.
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