Cross posted from The Albany Project
Jimmy Vielkind at PolitickerNY has been following the shenanigans in NY-20 closely.
Last night's post A Recount Slows, Then Turns a Little Ugly is particularly descriptive of what is going on.
ALBANY—First, the Republican attorneys monitoring the recount in the race for Kirsten Gillibrand’s old House seat objected to the ballots mailed in by multiple-home owners with return addresses in New York City or Florida. Then they objected to the ballots of college students from Skidmore. Then they challenged the ballot of ... Kirsten Gillibrand.
To make matters worse, the Times Union reports from Saratoga Springs today:
Larry Bulman, the chairman of the Saratoga County Democratic Committee, accused Republicans of challenging three groups in particular: the disabled, students and seniors.
Bulman said he witnessed a Republican poll watcher object to a ballot from a 91-year-old voter because she wrote on her absentee ballot application she was "too old" to vote in person.
That's just mean. Mean and ugly. That 91-year-old grandmother ought to take Tedisco's poll watcher over her knee and spank him for being so disrespectful to our elders. Mean, ugly, and disrespectful.
But back to Vielkind. Here is the crux of the matter:
"It’s always better to be ahead—that’s the whole goal of this process," said Nick Spano, a Yonkers Republican and former state senator who came out on the right side of a lengthy recount process in 2004, eventually winning by 18 votes.
No Nick, the goal of the process is not winning. Of course both candidates want to win. But the goal of the process is to determine the will of the voters. The process is about the voters not the candidates. Spano's statement paints the fall of the Republicans perfectly.
The Republicans are all about winning at any cost.
Our side, and democracy, is about determining the will of the people.
Sen. Gillibrand being challenged highlights Republican attempts to... win at any cost... also known as... steal... the election.
But... her ballot is not special. It simply exemplifies the extent to which the Republicans are willing to go to steal the election. Her ballot is just one amongst the 1300+ ballots of her constituents that the Republicans are attempting to disenfranchise.
From Vielkind:
They’re not doing it because they believe the votes to be illegitimate, really. What they’re doing, in the days and now hours leading up to the court hearings that will decide the outcome of the race between Republican Jim Tedisco and Democrat Scott Murphy, is creating a fact on the ground for the judiciary to overturn, if it dares.
So far it's not working as Scott Murphy maintains the lead in this race. It appears the Republicans are underestimating the depth of support for Scott Murphy and the Democrats in NY-20.
What this Republican tactic means though is that we can tell how many votes the Republicans think Scott Murphy is winning by... by the number of votes that they are challenging. In other words according to the Republicans math Scott Murphy has won this race by more than 1300 votes. They want to challenge... put a hold on... enough ballots s that Tedisco has the lead when they head into court and force their hand picked Republican Judge to "overturn their victory" by ruling that the challenged ballots should be counted.
This is political cynicism at its absolute worst.
This is all Jim Tedisco and the modern day Republican Party have to offer us.
At issue now is the fate of those few hundred absentee ballots that have been put aside. The vast majority of them were objected to by Republicans, mostly on the grounds, as National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Paul Lindsay put it, that "voters in the 20th Congressional District do not want this race decided by residents of New York City."
Nice try. But the fact of the matter is that We the People of NY-20 want this election decided by us, the voters. What we do not want is this election decided by a bunch of GOP lawyers in a backroom somewhere or by a hand picked Republican Judge in a courtroom.
Let our votes and those of our neighbors, all of our neighbors be counted.
Postscript:
Needless to say this is a costly affair involving multiple lawyers and poll watchers in all 10 counties that will be including court room costs shortly. If the Republican attempts to steal this election outrage you as much as they do those of us in NY-20 then please help by Contributing to Scott Murphy's Legal Fund to defend our victory in NY-20.