Update #2
Murphy lead is now +4 with 2422 out of 6726 (36%) counted
666 not counted as challenged
Projected to win by 162 now. (before challeges are counted)
Update #1
Murphy lead is now +96 with 1532 out of 6726 (22.8%) counted
266 not counted as challenged
Projected to win by 600 now.
Murphy started the day yesterday down by 68 votes in the NY-20 race. That was the final total of the machine votes from election day after checking and double checking. Then they started counting the 6726 absentee ballots. After counting 1120 absentee ballots (and rejecting about 100 or 200), at 4:30 yesterday afternoon Murphy had gained 76 votes and led by 8.
See the official unofficial numbers from the New York State Board of Elections:
http://www.elections.state.ny.us/...
More good news below the fold...
Now this morning the Poughkeepsie Journal
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/...
is reporting unofficically abother 170 votes counted in Dutchess county, giving Murphy a 55 vote lead.
In the ever changing election results, Democrat Scott Murphy has a 55-vote lead over Republican James Tedisco in the latest count of machine and absentee ballots for the too-close-to-call 20th Congressional District race.
As of today, the Dutchess County Board of Elections counted about 30 percent of the 740 absentee, affidavit and other paper ballots, excluding military and federal ballots. So far, 36 ballots have been challenged in the counting process, said Democrat Deputy Commissioner Dan French.
This is more great news. If true, Murphy is now projected to finish the absentee count with a 480 vote lead.
There are at this time only 403 federal, military and overseas ballots to be counted starting on April 14th (of course more might be coming in from now till the deadline on April 13).
Murphy is doing much better in the absentee voting than he did on election day indicating that the Democratic effort to encourage absentee voting was very successful. The absentee ballots counted so far have been weighed more heavily in Counties where Tedisco did well, so it's very likely that Murphy's lead will get even bigger as the other counties report their absentee results.
Of course Tedisco's team is responding to these results very predictably and are challenging an ever increasing number of ballots in all counties. But it looks like this won't be enough to make it appear that Tedisco is leading at any point. His lead disappeared yesterday at around 1:00 p.m. and my guess is that it's gone for good.
I will continue to update this diary with new results as they come in throughout the day, so if people wanted to req it up to the req list it'll be available for everyone to look at all day, LOL.
UPDATE # 1
Here is a report from TPM for what it's worth, also indicating that Murphy is extending his lead.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
The official state results show that Murphy has taken an eight-vote lead as of 4:30 p.m. ET yesterday, as absentee ballots begin to be counted. However, there is some more recent data that shows Murphy's lead is actually somewhat larger at the moment.
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.
Adding that new data to the Dutchess county report above, gives the following results:
County, Murphy absentee count, Tedisco absentee count
Columbia, 99 , 42
Delaware, 139 , 119
Dutchess, 153 , 93
Essex, 88 , 62
Greene, 97 , 106
Otsego, 51 , 60
Rensselaer, 221 , 202
Saratoga
Warren
Washington
Total 848 , 684
Murphy lead = 96