Sue Kelly has retracted her concession, and has hired an election attorney to do a recount. A bit from the article:
The 19th District representative is down by some 3,500 votes ... But, with some 10,000 absentee ballots to be counted along with several types of paper ballots like affidavit ballots, military ballots and others, attorney John Ciampoli said the first step in the process is to re-canvass the actual voting machines.
So much for the cozy afterglow of victory. I'm wondering if there's any chance the paper ballots will swing enough in her direction to make a difference. She won 49% of the votes counted so far; I estimate she'd need a bit more than 60% of the outstanding vote to change the result, depending on exactly how many ballots there still are left to count. This is assuming the machine recount will prove fruitless for her, as it should.
Anyone care to speculate?
Also, for what it's worth, the Hall campaign is so far projecting confidence on the issue. I got the following in an email from them earlier today:
Despite Sue Kelly retracting her concession and asking for a recount, you and I and everyone in the Hudson Valley knows that we won. I should note that I agree with Sue Kelly's statement that every single vote should be counted. This is America, and if any election proves the power of one single vote in our democracy, this is it. We are confident that when the ballots are tallied, our margin of victory will give me a clear mandate to represent New York's 19th District.
Classy guy. I'm proud to have supported him.