UPDATE # 1
WOW, Scott Murphy's lead just shot up from 47 to 168 with the 10:00 AM report from the Board of Elections. I'll be crunching the numbers below in the next 30 minutes, but it's hard to imaging this not being great news for Murphy.
Update # 2 and beyond, see the bottom of the diary below:
In the Special election for the NY-20 congressional seat, Scott Murphy (D) currently leads by 47 votes and that number is very likely to change in less than an hour as some of the results of yesterday’s counting gets released and posted on the State Board of Elections’ website here:
http://www.elections.state.ny.us/
Also check Hudson's great diary here for more info on the count and about the judge that will be making many of the decisions that will effect the outcome of this count.
More news below the fold...
MILITARY BALLOTS
The lead changed a bit last night as a few of the military, federal and overseas ballots were counted by Delaware and Otsego counties. Otsego had only 4 outstanding ballots and all four went for Tedisco. Delaware had 33 outstanding ballots and 15 went for Tedisco and 10 went for Murphy. Apparently 8 of the 33 were void or challenged. There are 415 of these ballots in the entire district and now 37 of them have been examined, so 378 are left. It appears from this small sample (37 ballots that these late ballots might favor Tedisco (as he has been claiming they would). The sample is too small to determine this for sure, and it would be very helpful to know why the 8 ballots in Delaware were not counted and if they were challenged, who did the challenging. Obviously a 19 to 10 split looks good for Tedisco, but if for example he also challenged all 8 of the uncounted ballots, then the split might have actually been closer to 19 to 18 which is not so bad at all.
But in any case if we use the small sample as a guide, then when the 378 remaining late ballots are fully counted we can expect 90 void or challenged ballots, 112 for Murphy and 213 for Tedisco. So before adjudicating the challenges, Tedisco should have a net gain of about 101 votes from the late ballots.
CHALLENGES AND CURRENT PROJECTION
Since using similar projections (with much larger sample sizes) shows that Murphy is expected to win the regular absentee ballots by 550 votes, the 100 or so from the late ballots will not be nearly enough to save Tedisco. His only hope remains somehow managing to get about 350 valid votes for Murphy removed from the count. To that end his attorneys in the five remaining counties are now challenging more than 50% of all the remaining ballots and slowing down the process so that it might take more than 2 more weeks to finish counting.
We are looking at a conclusion just like in the MN Senate race. A very small lead for one of the two candidates (probably Murphy) with some 2500 challenged ballots that heavily favor Murphy. When those challenged ballots are finally admitted and counted Muprhy’s lead will increase greatly.
Using what little accurate data we have. Murphy will win by about 380 votes after all the absentee, federal, overseas and military ballots are counted and all the challenges are resolved. This is of course assuming that no judge or court anywhere along the way makes any major rulings that change existing New York election law.
BACKGROUND
Here is some back ground for people that are new to this election count:
Murphy ended up trailing the Republican, Jim Tedisco, by 65 votes after the election day votes were counted. It was known that Murphy was going to gain some votes when the 6726 absentee ballots were counted, but not how many. Linear projections using the election day results in each of the ten counties suggested that he would gain about 144 votes from the absentee count. More than enough to take the lead and win the election.
Now with more than 50% of the absentee ballot count reported, its clear that Murphy is doing much better than that projected total. So well in fact, that Tedisco’s team has started the old trick (ala MN Senate race) of challenging hundreds of absentee ballots that are very likely to be votes for Murphy. This give the illusion that the race is much tighter than it really is, until these challenged ballots are finally adjudicated by a judge and get counted.
There are ten counties in the district:
Country, number of absentee ballots, % of election day vote for Murphy
Columbia, 984, 56.29%
Delaware, 290, 49.83%
Dutchess, 680, 51.51%
Essex, 173, 55.29%
Greene, 457, 44.43%
Otsego, 169, 48.76%
Rensselaer, 457, 48.49%
Saratoga, 1841, 45.85%
Warren, 1053, 55.76%
Washington, 622, 56.63%
So you can see, five counties went for Murphy and five went for Tedisco. Tedisco’s absentee strongholds are Saratoga and Greene counties, and Murphy’s are Columbia, Warren and Washington.
With Delaware, Essex, Greene, Otsego, and Rensselaer counties finished their count, And partial results in from the other five counties, Murphy has gained 112 so far to hold a 47 vote lead. A quick look at the results makes it clear that Tedisco has little chance. He has only one more county (Saratoga), and the late coming military, overseas and federal baloots where he might gain some votes. But he gained only 22 votes in Greene county which voted for him by the largest margin on election night. Extrapolating from the Greene county results indicates that Tedisco will only gain another 89 votes from Saratoga county. If Saratoga reports its results before any of the remaining four Murphy counties he might seem to take the lead in the count by 65 votes or so, but Murphy will get quite a few more than that from his remaining counties.
Murphy is doing much better with the absentee ballots counted so far than would be predicted by the election night rates in each county. It appears that Murphy supporters used absentee voting in a higher rate across the board than Tedisco voters.
Here’s some links to important news stories concerning the race:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
http://www.zwire.com/...
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/...
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
http://www.newsmax.com/...
CURRENT PROJECTIONS
And the final results as best they can be projected with all the challenges srewing up the data:
County, Murphy, Tedisco, Void
Columbia, 586, 328, 70
Delaware, 144, 124, 22
Dutchess, 343, 289, 48
Essex, 94, 66, 13
Greene, 201, 223, 33
Otsego, 87, 70, 12
Rensselaer, 221, 211, 25
Saratoga, 826, 884, 131
Warren, 553, 427, 73
Washington, 332, 246, 44
Total, 3387, 2868, 471
Murphy absentee net gain = 519
Tedisco net gain from late ballots = 101
Tedisco lead in the machine count = 65
Murphy wins by 519 – 65 - 101 = 353
WHAT TO LOOK FOR TODAY
Tedisco may take the lead today if Saratoga county reports its results first before any of the other remaining counties, or if Essex, Greene, or Rensselaer counties report more of their late ballots counts, but if so, it’ll only be temporary.
I’ll be updated this diary with new number today as they come in. I expect to see some number in just a few minutes as the State Board of Elections posts their daily 10:00 AM count update.
UPDATE # 1
OK, the 10:00 Update came out strong for Murphy, increasing his lead from 47 to 168. Good news, good news and bad news.
Bad news first, and it's not all that bad... Saratoga county (Tedisco's stronghold) did not report any numbers again. So the big jump that Tedisco might expect from there is still not included in the numbers. So this increase was pretty much the expected increase as Columbia and Warren report more partial results which were expected to favor Murphy.
Good news... The count also included another county's military, overseas and federal ballots. Greene county (Tedisco's stongest county in the election night returns) had 26 of these "late" ballots to count. The results are surprising and bad news for Tedisco. Out of the 26, 15 were for Murphy, 8 for Tedisco and 3 either voided or challenged. Yikes! So the "late" ballots count for three counties reporting stand at 25 for Murphy, 27 for Tedisco and 11 not counted. So Tedisco's projected strength in military ballots might not be nearly as strong as he had hoped.
More good news...
Even with Tedisco lawyers making hundreds of challenges in Warren and Columbia counties (amost certainly artificially reducing Murphy's gains in those counties), Murphy is gaining votes there at nearly double the rate he was expected to. In Columbia county Murphy got 56.19% of the election night vote, but he is getting 66.40% of the absentee vote. And in Warren, he got 55.76% of the election night return, and is getting 60.21% of the absentee. So the new projections look like this:
County, Murphy, Tedisco, Void
Columbia, 590, 324, 70
Delaware, 145, 124, 21
Dutchess, 342, 292, 46
Essex, 94, 66, 13
Greene, 201, 223, 33
Otsego, 90, 67, 12
Rensselaer, 221, 211, 25
Saratoga, 850, 860, 131
Warren, 555, 423, 75
Washington, 332, 245, 45
Total, 3420, 2835, 471
Murphy absentee net gain = 585
Tedisco net gain from late ballots = 13
Tedisco lead in the machine count = 65
Murphy wins by 585 – 65 - 13 = 507
Other news (or lack thereof):
I have not gotten any updates on the number of voided and challenged ballots in any counties for more than a day. So any projections from now on will tend to get less accurate unless I can find some info on how many ballots in each county are being challenged and by which side.
I can't figure out why Essex and Rensselaer counties have not reorted their military, federal and overseas ballot counts yet?
Their other counts have been done for more than a day and they only have 38 ballots to count (29 of Rensselaer and 9 for Essex). Seems like we should have seen those counts before this. I wonder what the delay is?
Update # 2
I just found a little more info on challenges here:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Adding that to the model gives me this result:
County, Murphy, Tedisco, Void
Columbia, 628, 286, 70
Delaware, 145, 124, 21
Dutchess, 324, 308, 48
Essex, 94, 66, 13
Greene, 201, 223, 33
Otsego, 90, 67, 12
Rensselaer, 221, 211, 25
Saratoga, 867, 844, 130
Warren, 564, 414, 75
Washington, 340, 238, 44
Total, 3474, 2781, 471
Murphy absentee net gain = 693
Tedisco lead in the machine count = 65
Tedisco net gain from late ballots = 15
Murphy wins by 693 – 65 - 15 = 613
UPDATE # 2
OK here is what the arguements are in today's case in front of judge "GOP Shill" Brands.
http://www.timesunion.com/...
Brands will rule whether an absentee ballot should be counted or set aside when both county election commissioners overrule a candidate representative's objection. Democrats claim Republicans have broken the law by insisting these ballots be set aside indefinitely.
And unbelieveably:
Murphy attorney Henry Berger told the judge that there are currently 1,262 challenged absentee ballots total in the 10 county boards of election tallying up the vote in the special election to replace Kirsten Gillibrand in the House of Representatives.
1262 ballots challenged out of only 4946 examined so far. Fully 27.82%
Tedisco has taken GOP vote count shenanigans to a whole new level.
And with that number we can say that 67.44% of the original 6726 absentee ballots have now been examined but only 47.78% of them have been counted.